Déjà vu no Jutsu
by Vixen Tail
Summary: There are a lot of SI and time travel fics in Naurto's childhood or his version of Team/Cell Seven. Let's take a look farther back at the changes a black ops inclined SI would make on Minato's life and ninja career. Second/Third Great Ninja War era SI AU.
1. Of Taijutsu and Insanity

**Disclaimer :** Naruto and all related characters and settings belongs to this guy in Japan that can draw actual people. Not me. Can't draw worth crap.

**Rating :** Err … T for swearing and bad language in general? Might make it to M for gore and violence later on.

**Author's Note** : … Don't kill me? :'(

I'm alive at least! Whoop?

**AHoW** has part of the next chapter done and in stone, just waiting for me to figure out how to introduce the clone troopers to the Spartans. **Deus ex** might take another few weeks but Kynaite has first crack at the next chapter for his debut. **Legends** has another round of chapters coming up to go through the desert and into the jungle. I'm stalled on **List of Events**, so that may end up not being updated for a long while yet. If you don't know what I'm talking about, feel free to ignore all that. This was something I worked on when I didn't have a computer, any internet other than my phone's pathetic connection, or energy to work on _anything_ already posted, though I knew I should have. I've finally reacquired my files of notes on those stories and can finally get back to working on them with shiny new laptop. So updates for the rest of my stories are slotted for work next. I swear. As long as nothing else pops up … knock on wood for me, yeah?

**Déjà vu no Jutsu** came out of a vague idea after a binge of Naruto crossovers, time travel fics, and self-inserts scenarios while I was working my crummy gas station job with little to nothing else to do besides think, which is why it's just inching over twenty thousand words long. Half a year of thinking about it, nearly fifty pages in 10 point font, right here. If you're into this kind of thing, since my meager updating skills are apparently as AWOL as my free time, may I suggest taking a stroll through my favorites list? There's a lot of good ones listed on there than I can realistically list here.

Next part of this, if I ever get around to writing it out after I restart updating my already existing fics, will cover right after the academy and most of the chuunin years, ending the Second Shinobi War, and maybe the start of the jounin promotions and weddings in the future. I'm still of two minds of what happens to Minato and Kushina later on, or what will happen to Natsumi in the very end, so let me know what you think should happen or any other changes. All total, this should only get four to five parts max. And no, if I screwed up something majorly, I really can't explain why. I've got a vague timeline with this story and I'm good with just that to work with. I'm posting this right before I take a flight out to attend my older brother's wedding, so formatting errors will be corrected once I have the time to fix them, if I can't when posting.

If you find something wrong with the Japanese, feel free to scream at me. Want to see something especially happen in the story? Let me know, there's no fixed plot for this. I just want to finish it, and get it far past the baby years for crying out loud, since there really are more unfinished stories like this than completed ones. And no, not really looking for a beta for this. All in all, if you just want to yell at me for not updating my other fics, pm me instead of leaving a review here, please.

One last thing, the answer to the question posed under this section's title will be answered in part two. Then part three will have a question answered in part four, and five, if we have a part five, will be … eh. Something. If you don't like reviewing a story's grammar or contents, try answering that.

**Summary** : There are a lot of SI and time travel fics in Naurto's childhood or his version of Team/Cell Seven. Let's take a look farther back at the changes a black ops inclined SI would make on Minato's life and ninja career. Second/Third Great Ninja War era SI AU.

* * *

Part 1: Of Taijutsu and Insanity

_There's a fine line between genius and madness._

_So if you can tell the genius he is mad with little problem, why can't you tell the madman he's genius without awkward questions being asked of your own sanity?_

* * *

Mesuji Natsumi frowned absently at the slightly younger blond kid standing before her. Namikaze Minato flushed lightly under her stare but continued to hold her gaze steadily. She had to give him credit for the guts it had to take to do that, because not even the caretakers at the orphanage they both lived in could hold her gaze without shying away.

Minato had just asked her to help him with his taijutsu, seeing as she _was_ noted as one of the best kunoichis in their year at the moment in the sparring field. Not that being best in taijutsu in a group of eight or nine year old children was any great accomplishment to be boasted of, but Natsumi saw the intelligence in asking a sempai for help instead of trying to do it all alone and possibly screw something major up. However, her reservations about helping the other kid kept her silent as she thought the request through entirely.

The child known as Mesuji Natsumi, orphaned kunoichi trainee of Konohagakure, was a bit of an abnormality, something the girl herself would freely admit to. Where most children were happy playing games of ninja all day every day, Natsumi preferred either reading under a shady tree somewhere, working out on her own, helping out the caretakers that looked after fifty other children of varying ages, or running errands for the caretakers to get her out of the crowded building. The other children thought she was stuck up because her now dead mother had been a kunoichi and raised her for the first three years of her life.

In truth, Natsumi really had a hard time equating the woman that maybe visited her every few weeks for the first hazy days of her life with her mother.

Her differences from the other children could be nailed down to one actual reason. Natsumi could recall another life that didn't include shinobi or hidden villages. She had been a twenty-seven year old Staff Sargent enlisted in the United States Army, and she was reasonably certain she had been killed in action after insurgents ambushed her company's patrolling squad. So she was still rather unsure if she was hallucinating being a kid again or not, since she had followed the Naruto manga storyline somewhat past Shippuden but lost interest around the time her unit was gearing up again for another deployment across the pond. Natsumi _knew_ the kid before her was going to be the Fourth Hokage, who would have a son that he would sacrifice his life to seal the strongest demon of the Elemental Countries into, that she was attending the academy with the next generations' clan leaders scattered through the three years, and that everything seemed to go to hell in a hand basket after three or four generations from her current point in time now. The question was, what was she doing here at all?

A hesitant shift drew the young 'girl's' attention back to the blond, blue eyed academy student still waiting for a response from her. She figured she had better answer him before he wandered off and she got an even worse reputation for anti-social tendencies. "… Reflexes and speed."

"Aa… what?"

Natsumi's lips twitched at the bewildered expression on her classmate's childish face, then huffed a sigh and explained further. She couldn't get the Yondaime killed by _advice_ before his inauguration and impending death, right? "Train your reflexes and speed first. Katas are good too, but we're not going to remain this size our entire life, so unless you train with someone that's the same size and is just as good as you then you're not going to get a good feel of a real fight's rhythm just yet. Just concentrate on muscle memory for the moment instead of trying to find a way to keep up with someone that outsizes you, since they won't half a decade down the road… and stamina now that I think about it. Staying power." She shrugged, waving one hand to indicate the small stretch of yard behind her where she had been working out before the other child had interrupted her. "Flexibility is also something you would want to develop now, seeing as it's easier to keep up with than start on it out cold later on."

Minato flushed red in embarrassment, seeing as he _had_ interrupted Natsumi's nightly ritual for his request. Stretches that were nearly an entire exercise regimen in itself. A few other girls their age had tried to keep up with Natsumi's routine for a while on their own but they gave up after the first few nights, claiming that no one should be able to do all that every night and still wake with the sun to do an entirely different set. To be honest with himself, he really hadn't expected the odd girl almost half a year older than him to humor his request at all. It was well known that Natsumi couldn't really stand many of the kids that lived in the orphanage with them, she would frequently get impatient or annoyed with the attitude most had.

What they all didn't know was that the 'girl' was just following a habit of nightly yoga stretches and early morning physical training she had established in another life, just much earlier than she had before.

The blond watched the black haired girl continuing to think about his proposal. She wasn't much taller than him, but she had flat, wiry muscles under her dark colored, earth toned second hand clothing, and even less baby fat than most other shinobi in training. She had a kendo user's back, steady balance, and was light footed due to the physical exercise and posture she held herself to. She did have her mother's eyes, as per what the caretakers whispered to themselves when they thought the academy kids were too distracted to eavesdrop, a curious miss matched pair of light blue and light green. It gave her a bit of an asymmetrical look from a distance, as if her blue eye was smaller than the other. Her hair was frequently up, either in a bun or a high tail, and it reached the small of her back because the caretakers refused to let her cut it to shoulder length.

She could keep up even with a Nara's intellect on occasion, frequently by going off in tangents that Shikaku hadn't gotten around to thinking about yet, and seemed almost resigned by the whole academy curriculum as any other relative belonging to the Nara clan. She also could understand people almost in the same way Inoichi could, but she was better at articulating what other people were doing that the Yamanaka clan heir. She was smart but hated attention and he knew she frequently threw her paper tests and screwed up her own homework to remain comfortably in the middle ranking of their academy class. There were a few rather interesting rumors about who her father could have been, but if she knew Natsumi wasn't talking.

"If you want to join me, you can." Her still childish voice brought the Rookie of the Year back to the present sharply. "But I won't go easy on you. You'll have to catch up on your own." She tapped one finger against her lips and inspected Minato. "If you do manage to keep up with me, I'll spar with you every evening."

Minato brightened visibly with a grin. That was what he had been after when he approached her.

(ooo000ooo)

Minato cursed Natsumi out in the safety of his mind, cursed her unnatural exercises, and her freaky ability to find and correct just about every error he had made in the last two days. With all the eloquence of an eight year old. Mostly by calling her stupid.

Natsumi's stretches _hurt_. They turned muscles to mush, tendons into overcooked noodles, and left the blond in an exhausted heap after he dragged himself into bed once the first night had been over. The girl herself was totally unapologetic about it when she had dragged him out of his futon and out into the predawn light to do another set of movements, exercises, and katas.

_Better get used to it now than in the middle of a fight where you're out of chakra, injured, and trying to get your scrawny butt back home out of enemy territory._

Minato frowned into his mattress as the kunoichi trainee's favorite encouragement echoed in his head. She was even odder than he had thought before asking for her help. Natsumi had ignored the girls when they tried to copy her habits, but had efficiently taught him to do what she did. He had never seen her teach anyone else, but after thinking about it more he had to chalk it up to her mother teaching her.

Natsumi's mother had to have been worse than her, and he spent a moment thanking kami that he was only dealing with the child and not the mother herself.

\V/

Two weeks later, Yamanaka Inoichi finally managed to corner Minato about what he had been doing when the girl herself was just in position to overhear during the lunch break. "You asked Mesuji-san for her help with your taijutsu?"

"How did you know?" Namikaze asked brightly, and the eavesdropping girl lookalike smirked to herself. She imagined the same smirk was plastered over Minato's lips as he played innocent.

"The way you side stepped that punch this afternoon during practice." The drawl could only belong to the Nara clan heir, Shikaku, seeing as she confused and intrigued the boy on a daily basis. "That was just how she does it, but she's more graceful about it. Almost fluid like. You both caught the instructor's attention with that."

A huff of sheepish embarrassment escaped Minato. "Rub it in, Shika-kun. But I _am_ learning, and Natsumi-sempai hadn't told me to scram yet."

It was said with an edge of wonderment that caught the woman turned girl in surprise. She hadn't been that bad, had she?

"How?" Ah, that had to be one of the Hyuuga twins in the year above them. Or maybe the Uchiha heir Fugaku the year above that? Someone with a large stick shoved somewhere uncomfortable with how grated the word had come out. Then again, it couldn't be the younger of the twins, Hizashi, he was actually likable enough compared to Hiashi.

"I asked her." And oh, Minato sounded _so_ smug about it as he indulged a bit of childish bragging between friends. Natsumi almost wanted to laugh at the predicable reply, if it wasn't for the curiosity that was holding her silent. "She stared at me for a bit, almost if she couldn't understand why I asked her. But she did finally give me a few pointers and told me I was invited to join her when she trained in the mornings and evenings." His tone of voice changed from smug to wondering to satisfied, and the girl could almost see it as if the blond kid was standing in front of her. "She also said if I catch up to her, she would spar with me."

"That's… not how the other girls described her." Inoichi mused, almost to himself. He had to be one of the closer ones to the open window she was sitting under. "They told us repeatedly she was standoffish. If that were true, wouldn't she have ignored you?"

There was a splutter, and even before the inhale and high pitched voice, Natsumi just _knew_ it was one of the civilian girls shoved into the academy without proper instruction or warning in the hopes that a kunoichi in the family would increase their social standing. Mei, or Mimi, or something inane like that. "She _is._ You're just being lead along until she decided to be cruel to you, Mina-kun! You should avoid-"

Natsumi quickly used the window's edge to haul herself up to sit on the small ledge. And yep, Inoichi was sitting in the desk closer to the window and was the first to spot the kunoichi in question out of the group still lingering in the classroom. A few others scattered around and in position to see her on the sill gave her an unimpressed look for using the window instead of going around to the door. "You know…" All the first year academy students still in the classroom that hadn't noticed her yet stiffened at her sarcastic drawl, then whipped around to face her. "I find it _fascinating_ that you know me so well when I'm mostly sure I don't even know your name, _girl_."

The soon to be eleven year old Uchiha Fugaku had been the one to question Minato's effort, not either of the nine year old Hyuugas. Then again, if one of the twins had been present, Natsumi was sure she wouldn't have been able to eavesdrop without difficulty. Damn that kekkai genkai's all-seeing eyes.

Mei, or Mimi, started to splutter again, an embarrassed flush rising up her pale, chubby cheeks. "I know _you_, alright. You're a mean little girl with no talent."

"Yeah!" Another girl came up to Mei's, or Mimi's, shoulder and sneered with all the skill of her eight years. "Shut up, weird eyes! Stop bothering Kyoko-chan."

Natsumi raised one eyebrow in the face of the insults, bemused at the shallow attempts of bullying. "Really." She deadpanned, looking the two wannabe kunoichi over, less than impressed with their name calling. "… I thought her name was Mei. Or Mimi." Ignoring the flush of rage going up Kyoko's face, the appalled expression on her friend, the snickering from Inoichi, and the ever placid Chouza's amused expression, Natsumi tapped one calloused finger against her lips. "I really can't recall meeting the two of you. Care to explain?" She drawled out with all the commanding edge from another life spent barking orders to unruly soldiers.

Kyoko squeaked, actually _squeaked_, and dropped a cringing Minato's arm like she had been burned. The blond kid took no time in repositioning himself on the other side of Fugaku to get away from his insistent fan girl, but kept his eyes curiously on what was going on. The Uchiha heir, contrary to the mild rivalry that existed between himself and the first year academy's Rookie of the Year, stood firm with a blank face and let the younger Namikaze use him as a meat shield. Then again, Uchihas were rather infamous for hating the inevitable fan girls they collected like used gum when they trained to be shinobi, so it wasn't that unusual he was giving assistance to someone else trying to avoid his.

"You were the one to throw a senbon through my ear!" The girl screeched, making everyone in the vicinity flinch from the high pitch she used.

The Aburame kids, who had been listening in silently over by the corner, winced and exited the classroom as soon as they calmly could, closely followed by the scrambling lone Inuzuka girl and her two nin-dogs almost on the bug users' heels. Both clans were sensitive to loud sounds, and the civilian girl had just irritated or annoyed the latest shinobi trainees out of both clans.

Natsumi snapped the fingers of her right hand, recalling the one and only time she had seen the other girl besides in the classroom or in the halls. "Right! You were the idiot that questioned Tsubaki-sensei about the effectiveness of precision senbon throwing to the point where she was contemplating throwing you out of the kunoichi classes." She _had_ hit the girl in the ear with a practice senbon with enough force to piece the skin, and the sensei had admired her aim out loud first before taking the girl to the nurse station set up in the front of the building, telling her to 'toughen up, it's not that bad' the entire time. Now Natsumi inspected the deadly pale girl standing in front of her and mused out loud enough to be heard. "I really thought your name was Mei, or Mimi. Or something stupid like that."

Inoichi was smothering his laughter into both hands by this point, blond head bowed to keep his eyes off the two girls and losing his head entirely. Shikaku had a lazy grin stretching his face, mostly because this had nothing to do with him so he could just enjoy the show freely. The others were a mix of studied indifference or sheepish embarrassment, either trying to conceal their chagrin at being caught out gossiping or being spied upon successfully. Except for Chouza, who just kept on eating to maintain his clan's inherited metabolism up at peak efficiency as he ignored the drama unfolding before him.

The other girl, who Natsumi still didn't know the name of, hesitantly spoke up over the Akimichi heir's munching. The dual eyed kunoichi had never before bothered to do something about Kyoko's rather mean rumormongering, and she didn't quite know what all was going on to make the strange girl snap at them. "My name is Mei."

"Right…" Natsumi shook her head after a moment, not at all embarrassed by getting their names wrong. "Still don't care. If you're going to spread misinformation, at least have the decency to do it at least with _some_ kind of skill." She hefted a painfully fake sigh, well aware that baiting the two girls probably wouldn't do her much good in any popularity contest. But still, it would probably get them to shut up for a bit and cause others to avoid her when the news that she wasn't an easy mark for bullying got out. And hey, she was supposed to be a child, after all. Why not have a bit of fun with it? "Just because you have no talent in any really practical skills doesn't mean you should sink to toddler level insults. We're supposed to be better than _that_."

Kyoko flushed completely red, either in rage or embarrassment, and spun around only to lose the color again nearly as fast as she gained it.

Looming behind her, probably having moved just that instance with a carefully controlled shunshin so no one was taken off guard by him, seeing as bad things happened when you're training pint-sized killers then surprised them with sharp objects at hand, was the main instructor for the first year academy students, and would continue to be for all three years they would spend here. Hiruki-sensei had carefully blanked features as he watched the girl staring fearfully up at him. "Is there a problem here, children?"

Ignoring the dutiful muttering of 'no, sensei', Hiruki-sensei looked over at the girl perched in the window sill. "Are you sure about that, Natsumi-chan?"

"Yep." Suppressing the grimace at the tag on her name, the misplaced soldier shrugged in false innocence. "Was there something you wanted from us, sensei?"

"Hmm." His dark eyes inspected the faces of the children before him before focusing back on the troublemaker herself. "A moment, Kyoko-chan? I need a word with you."

The girl gulped fearfully, but followed the instructor out of the room. Natsumi shrugged to herself as she watched the two of them leave. Either Kyoko was going to get chewed out for screeching in a room with an Inuzuka and two Aburames nearby without an immediate need for it or disciplined for starting damaging rumors about a fellow classmate for personal and petty, and therefore wasteful, reasons. Honestly, something the girl needed badly. Now left with about six other kids of various age, she was seriously contemplating leaving. Not that she was anti-social like most thought, she just didn't like meeting new children and trying to figure out how to not insult one or two unwittingly. On the other hand, maybe she was kind of anti-social at the moment given her own height.

"Sempai! You're still here!"

Well, there went that idea. With Minato beaming at her with the hint of evil intent around the edges, Natsumi was just sure she wasn't getting away anytime soon.

(ooo000ooo)

Minato was still grinning. He really couldn't help it.

Natsumi-sempai was grudgingly getting along with the rest of his friends. Mostly, he was sure, because he hadn't left the sometimes taciturn kunoichi trainee much choice in the matter.

Tuning out Shikaku's third attempt to explain the rules of go to the strange eyed girl, he puzzled over the last few hours in his head.

Natsumi had stiffened up when he had introduced her to the other boys, but that rigidity had melted after a few minutes when Mei had finally gone off to find her friend and the rest of that unbending edge had gone away once around five minutes passed without much of anything said. Now she was just awkward as if unused to making more friends or even talking to others. That made him just as sad as watching Natsumi do her exercises alone every evening at the orphanage. Like the rest of the academy kids with a higher than average intelligence, Natsumi was unused to relating with others her age since most of them couldn't understand her, and vice-versa.

Minato knew he was smarter than average. Not nearly as smart as Shikaku, but the Nara heir could out think even his own father. His own intelligence went along with his ability to remember everything he saw, but that was theoretical next to the shadow user's intuitive intelligence. Natsumi was smart too. Not like the Naras or like himself, it was more like she could think on multiple levels at the same time. And she saw much more than Minato could at first glance.

Comprehension was what Natsumi excelled at. _Able to understand underneath the underneath naturally, really_, Minato mused to himself as Natsumi gifted Shikaku with a lopsided, teasing grin and admitted she knew how to play, she just wanted to know how long it would take him to get fed up with explaining the rules to her.

But there was something else to her, almost like the tone of voice the girl had used against Kyoko. Something else that gave her a confidence that was hard to fake. He wanted to know what that was.

(ooo000ooo)

Bemusedly, Natsumi played three games with the shadow user before bowing out and dragging Minato back to the orphanage with her for their nightly stretches. She lost all three, but Shikaku had to work hard for them. Something that had the Nara heir considering her thoughtfully yet again.

"So?" Her new kouhai asked while trying his third yoga stretch. "What d-do you think about- ah!"

Natsumi grabbed ahold of Minato's leg before he could overcorrect his balance and fall face first on the ground. "Shut up and concentrate, gaki, or you'll do worse than face plant." She couldn't keep the fond tone out of her voice even if she was trying for irritable. "They're alright. Even the Uchiha baka, and I never thought that was possible."

The blond pushed himself upright with a grin, ignoring the trembling of his muscles as he took a seat on the ground for the next set she was already on. "Will you hang out with us more often then?"

"Why?" She really couldn't understand his motives. Natsumi was mostly content with simply continuing as she had been, there really wasn't a reason to get friend she would have to lie to. The whole lived another life thing could get her sent to the mental hospital at best, a one way trip to T&I at worse. Not really anything she really wanted to risk happening to her. Besides, she still had to figure out what the hell was going on.

"Cause you're lonely." Minato puffed out, pulling one leg up as far as he could and wincing at the sensation of pulling tendons and ill-used muscles flexing. "I could see it, heck, even the caretakers could. What would be the harm?"

Natsumi eyed the angle the blond was bending, carefully ignoring what he said about her for the moment. "Why do you care?"

"You're a comrade." Her fellow academy student shot back at her, unperturbed at the rude question. Geniuses had a few quirks you had to ignore if you wanted to get along with them. Shikaku's were laziness and strategy games. Apparently, Natsumi's included rudeness.

The young girl's mind wrenched back to the woman soldier's memories, and the many nights she had spent just with the others of her unit either screwing around drinking or playing some kind of multi-person shooter. She had to admit she missed that kind of closeness stuck in the body of a kid wherever the hell here was. "Fine."

\V/

Natsumi turned into a bit of an unwilling friend after that.

She didn't object to the blond's intentions of including her anymore, but it was getting less rare for her to seek out the group of boys for any reason when they had some free time. The year older Hyuuga twins, or at least on half of them, were indifferent to what the dual eyed girl did and didn't do with them. Hizashi tried almost as hard as Minato to include her, but had half the succession rate the Namikaze kid did. Unless she had managed to win one of their irregular shogi or go games, Shikaku didn't really care what she did besides the odd times he eyed her, almost like he was trying to puzzle something out. Following along with the Nara heir both Inoichi and Chouza would offer to include her every now and again. Uchiha Fugaku simply maintained his silent rivalry with Minato, the two years between the boys notwithstanding, which took a bit of a hit when he was told Natsumi could have had the title but didn't want the attention, forcing him to acknowledge the girl as something other than an annoyance.

Minato didn't mind when his sempai wandered off on her own for a while, seeing as she was less lonely than before and kept up with training with him every evening. After all, she always came back.

Sometimes, though, she came back and promptly threw a wrench in their thought processes instead of joining up with whatever was going on without comment like she usually did.

Inoichi had been complaining to the rest of them about the mandatory field excursion for their year, which was more like a weeklong field trip to one of the farthest training grounds still inside the walls of the village. "I was going to ask Tou-chan about training me in the next level of our clan techniques. Why can't I skip this trip?"

"Brainwashing. Or mental conditioning, one of the two." The flat reply had all the boys spinning around to face the girl. Natsumi had an odd expression on her face as she quirked a grim smile at them all. "Your clan does mind walking jutsus and specializes in reverse psychology and psychological warfare in individual combat outside the village, right?" Waiting for the platinum blond's nod, the girl cracked her neck to loosen it up before sitting down with the rest of them and pulling out her lunch. "Think of it this way. If social expectations and pressures can form a mob mentality you can direct to violence from just the _impression_ of an insult done to them from a specific controlling group, why wouldn't the stigma attached to killing in civilized society be as easily ignored or worked around in a similar group mentality with the right encouragement or leading? You do recall we're training to be killers, right?"

Inoichi blushed a bit as he worked through that, though he was sure she wasn't irritable today at him for overlooking that angle, pulling his bento box closer to his body. He just hadn't thought of that, too caught up in learning to read another person's mind with his clan's jutsus. Chouza patted his friend on the back, commiserating with him since it seemed not of the others had thought of it in that way yet, offering a chip from his ever present bag to the blond.

The Nara heir snorted from the Akimichi's other side, giving the girl a long, sideways look. "So you think this is only to get the hesitation of a kill out of the way."

"Unless there's going to be a surprise attack by bandits or nuke-nin that _somehow_ evaded the village's security," here she gave a nod of recognition to Fugaku, as the Uchiha clan controlled the main chunk of Konoha's internal security by the Second Hokage's decree, "not so much getting the hesitation out of the way as letting us make us kill at least one animal and associating the death with something else besides the socialized stigma of murder. Like say, a pleasant camping trip with friends." At the blank looks on their faces, she huffed in exasperation. "Did no one else read the notice? We're expected to _hunt our own food_. That would include killing and preparing it. There _are_ some people that can't even bring themselves to harm the local _wildlife_ much less another _person_, you know."

There was an almost wordless inhale of comprehension from the others. Minato acquired an unusual expression as he studied the girl's fading expression of cynicism, but Natsumi figured she would be grilled about how she knew to understand that much later that night at the orphanage. For now, she turned her attention forcibly back to what drew her over to them in the first place. "Do any of you know that new red head girl in the first year classes? She apparently showed up this morning, but I wasn't here to hear what's going on."

"Why weren't you here?" Hizashi eyed the bandages that covered the girl's forearms, noting one was a bit more bulky than the other. "Pull something?"

"Sprained my wrist this morning, actually. The workers over at the orphanages panicked over it." She shrugged idly, accepting the sympathizing nods from the rest of them and the compassionately given potato chip Chouza automatically handed to her with a slight, quirky smile. There hadn't been a week yet where they were wasn't some kind of injury among the medium sized group, ranging from cuts and bruises to even a broken rib once in Hiashi's case. "Well?"

"Uzumaki Kushina, Mesuji-san." Fugaku supplied, sneering at her. The sneer was ignored by all reflexively now, the clan's innate superiority complex was rumored to be genetic trait along with their kekkai genkai. Kind of like the Uzumaki's verbal tic and their insane physical energy. Quietly, of course. "Loudmouthed little girl from Uzugakure who apparently claims she is going to be the first female Hokage." It really hadn't been hard to hear that, given how boisterous the girl was.

"Huh." Natsumi tapped her chopsticks against the edge of her store bought bento as the name rang a loud bell, idly thanking the kami she had fellow soldiers in another life to teach her how to eat rice with them. She had found that any skills she didn't already know before this life were harder to grasp with a child's motor control and attention span. Damn throwing skills, she needed to work on those. "Just to let you know, Uchiha-_sama_, Uzumaki-san latched onto Mikoto-san as a sempai with a death grip and has given no inclination that she's going to let go."

Fugaku blanched, temporarily forgetting his Uchiha's stoic mask in light of the warning the girl had given and the consequences it would have for him. He didn't really care about the odd kunoichi Minato had offered friendship to either way, and she was thankfully similarly indifferent to him, but she would give him tips about his legion of fan girls and any rumors linked to his clan in return for his tolerance of her presence when she showed up. "Dear _kami-sama_, please no." The mentioned Uchiha girl was a year younger than him, and Mikoto was rumored to be his intended bride decided upon by their clan elders. That meant if she did become friends with the loudmouth red headed kunoichi, she was going to be a familiar headache to the Uchiha clan heir sooner or later. He ignored the Akimichi's offer of sympathy and Hiashi took it instead. No use in wasting good potato chips.

"So what brings you back to these fellow humble students of yours, Natsumi-sempai?" Minato cheerfully asked the dark haired girl, smirking when she gave him an odd look.

"Must you continue calling me that? You're making me feel old." The sole kunoichi muttered without venom, used to the title now after four months continually being called that even if she wished otherwise. "And nothing, really. I was getting kind of bored." She shrugged, concealing the gleam in her eyes by narrowing them. It was a bit too late, as the shadow user and her kouhai both were eyeing her worriedly. "I've a question. What is a large group of shinobi called? A flock, a mass, or a murder?"

Fugaku understood her aim first, discounting Shikaku's groan and slump since he never answered her odd questions. The raven haired shinobi in training managed to fix his sneering mask after that. "That was horrible. Kindly cease attempting to jest, Mesuji-san."

Chouza boomed out a laugh half a second later, and the Hyuuga twins both wore expressions of stoically pained tolerance as they too understood the joke she was trying to make. Inoichi shot a glare at Minato, as if his fellow blond was solely responsible for the girl's horrid sense of humor.

Natsumi's fellow orphan had his hand covering his eyes, so he didn't notice the Yamanaka's ire. "You know, Natsumi-sempai, if I had known about your pathetic attempts at making jokes beforehand…"

"You probably would have asked me for taijutsu tips anyways." The lone kunoichi of the group shot back, ignoring the exasperation in his tone and posture. "_How_ you managed your standing with only the academy style under your belt is beyond me, especially _before_ you started working with me on it."

Minato shrugged without care, uncapping a bottle to take a sip out of the water he had brought along. "I either out lasted or out thought most of my opponents, and the ones I couldn't out think didn't care or the ones I couldn't out last didn't really want to fight a friend." He waved his own chopsticks at terminally lazy shadow master in training, who was pretending he was alone and staring up at the sky since it didn't look like the others were going to be quiet today, and the forever eating walking mountain that was the Akimichi heir. "Now though, with the speed and reflexes I have now I think you and the clan taught kids are the only ones who could keep up with me."

Natsumi had to give him that as she chewed, both on her food and her kouhai's logic. She had her previous life's combatives that most thought was merely the unfinished style her mother favored, a mash of many different martial arts unknown to Konoha and combined by the soldiers of her last life into a very effective offensive style, and Konohagakure's academy style, which was more defensive than offensive. But Minato had refused learning that with the flexibility and strength training she had, explaining it was a point of pride for him to excel only at the style taught to the pre-genin of Konoha.

Stupid, stubborn blonds.

Then the bell, which signified the lunch break was over and they needed to return to class, rang.

\V/

"So, want to come with me?" Minato asked cheerfully, ducking under the punch from his sempai that would've loosened a few teeth had he not dodged it.

"Whose birthday is it again?" Natsumi asked without even breathing hard, catching the blond's returned punch with her left and swinging the other child around by his arm, kneeing him in the back and knocking the breath out of him before he could compensate for the reversal of his person.

The sole Namikaze alive wheezed out a lungful of air painfully between clenched teeth and hit the ground face first, rolling to the side to avoid the drop kick that impacted just after he hit dirt.

He just knew that his back was going to bruise, and he thought again that it was horribly unfair of her. Since the girl had been exercising for so long already she rarely was out of breath in the middle of one of their spars even when he started flagging nearly around the same time. His stamina was getting better, was better than most of the children in their year, but the girl with mismatched eyes had been doing her exercises for so long that she was indefinably better at it then him. So far, at least. His sempai had confided that in the long run, he'd be better than her in stamina just because he was a boy like she would be in speed since she was a girl. But that didn't mean she couldn't get in some _really_ good hits before he managed to take her down, since their spars started out in her favor before tipping into his hands near the end when even she got tired.

Natsumi really didn't want to go to a birthday party, heck she didn't even recall her last one in either life, and she had no desire to see how one differed from her last life. Probably less alcohol overall, though. She was mildly impressed with herself for recalling her own birthdays, both of them. That was, of course, if it really was a birthday party the blond was inviting her to.

Minato coughed as he pushed himself up to his knees. "Damn, Natsumi-sempai. That one hurt. And it's Shika-kun's."

With short glance to the newly emerging stars to check the general time, the displaced woman in a girl's body shook her head and motioned for them to start their cool down stretches. "Do I want to spend a night being challenged to shogi and go games and being guilt tripped into playing with Shika-kun's clan even if I don't want to?" Her fellow academy student blushed at her dry tone. "Really, Mina-kun. Your actual reason, please."

"Umm…" Ignoring that Natsumi only called him 'Mina-kun' when she was starting to get irritated with him, Minato mustered his courage and promptly quailed at the glare the girl was pinning him with. "W-what do you mean actual reason?"

"Because before it was Shikaku-kun's, it was Inoichi-kun's. I heard that from the twins. And before that, Chouza-kun's birthday. From Shikaku-kun himself. Remarkable that they were all born on the same day, huh?"

Minato slapped a hand to his forehead and squeezed his eyes shut. Apparently they hadn't coordinated as well as they thought they had. "Well… that's just… damn."

"Just ask the question that's been bothering you, would you? You're starting to worry me." Natsumi threw up her hands in uncharacteristic exasperation, stopping mid-stretch and glaring at the other child in a similarly alarming deviation from her normal routine. "I've answered all of the ones you've asked, right?"

The future Yondaime Hokage flushed in shame, taking in the stress that lined the face of his only female friend's face from his and the other's subterfuge. He supposed he and the rest of their little group had done the girl a disservice, since she didn't lie to them. And question they had asked of her _were_ answered… just not fully.

Shikaku had been the first to catch on to the girl's quirks. The cynicism aimed at the instructors' methods of teaching, her inability to deal with large groups of people, her skill at a game Minato had admitted he had never seen her play before. She was blasé to extreme in some aspects, touchy about others. Inoichi had been the first to bring up that she may have been a spy.

But if that were true, why would she bother them with her horrible jokes? If she was aiming to get close to any of the future clan heads, why go off on her own a lot? She never disappeared, just distanced herself slightly and lost her attention to what would occupy her mind. Even Fugaku had been skeptical when the possibility had been brought up. Besides that, why give the time of day to a no name orphan and help him train?

"Aa, sorry." Minato waved his hands before him at her irritated glare. "Really! Just, okay." He rubbed the back of his head sheepishly. "Not very well done by us, huh?"

"You don't say?" Natsumi gritted out. "Where do you want to ask, Minato?"

The blond sighed tiredly and fell back into his own cool down routine. "The Nara's clan compound. Shikaku-kun got us permission to camp out for the night in the forest behind his house."

(ooo000ooo)

Shikaku had his head buried in his hands when the two orphans finally showed up, obviously he had already discovered the miscommunication, and he waved off Natsumi well before she could comment about it. "Yes, we screwed up. Shut it, Natsumi-sempai."

The woman in a girl's body shrugged, offloading her academy issued sleeping bag before approaching the camp fire Chouza had lit and was still feeding firewood to. "So," she started for the uneasy group, taking a seat next to the older Uchiha boy on his right, "you couldn't just come out and ask me what was going on?"

Inoichi blushed beet red, not looking at the girl. Both twins looked to each other, then shrugged. Fugaku kept his attention on the roasting rabbit as Minato took a seat next to Natsumi. Chouza was the only one to speak up, attention still on the Uchiha's chore rather than the girl they had gathered to question. "I told them to, Natsumi-chan. But they like the conspiracy theories better."

"Really." The dry tone she used had all the boys wincing with various levels of shame. Natsumi scoffed at the automatic reaction from the males. "I'm not going to remain the only girl to hang out with you all. Better get used to it."

That had expressions of distaste crossing each boy's face and the kunoichi cackled at them all. Ah, the wonders of foreknowledge. All of them procreated in the story she recalled, and that held a number of wonderful opportunities of blackmail.

"Yeah, but they won't be as scary as you, Natsumi-chan." The shadow user grumbled just loud enough to be heard, lifting his head enough to see the girl clearly. "Now will you tell us what's going on?"

Natsumi just shrugged and nodded to their collective surprise. She had chewed the questions in her head up one side and down the other, and was unsure if she was actually concentrating on the important parts. Maybe telling someone would help, though she wasn't expecting it to do much good. "Sure. I'm trying to decide if I'm insane or hallucinating."

That had them all confused, looking at each other before back to her. That was not something they had thought would come out of her mouth.

"Insane?" Inoichi prompted, looking fascinated. Everyone else around the campfire looked uneasy.

Natsumi eyed him and his expression, snorting quietly to herself. Figures it would be a mind walker that would take that declaration in stride. "I can recall about twenty odd years of another life. Seeing as I'm not twenty something, and I'm mostly certain I've died once already, being gutted _hurts_ by the way, that leaves me with only a few options left for what's going on. Insanity, hallucinations, you know." She glanced to the stony faced Uchiha at her side, staring at her as if he would be able to see any ill intent she had in mind before she could commit any act influenced by it. "Though, if I am dreaming in a coma somewhere or hallucinating, there must be something really wrong with my head." Cue genetic Uchiha sneer. Fun.

"Twenty odd years?" Shikaku asked, sharp eyes taking in the lax posture Natsumi had even with her claim. Body language alone told him the girl was unconcerned with their opinion of her mental state. "I can see why you're thinking insanity."

She pulled a sour face in return for the scrutiny and the comment. "Funny thing is, Shika-kun, about seventy percent of that is mind numbingly boring guard shifts and deployments. For it to be insanity, you would think it all would be more interesting than it is."

"Deployments? Which village and conflict do you recall, Natsumi-san?" Hizashi asked next, and the woman turned girl was mostly certain that the forehead hidden behind the bandages was furrowed as the younger twin tried to imagine the headache of living two lives.

"None of them from current history, which would mean the last thousand years at least. I looked. Also wasn't a kunoichi before, I was just a soldier." She waved a hand dismissively in the air in front of her, thinking back to the effort she had mustered up to find anything she could recognize from the other set of memories when she had been five. Just before she tripped over the whole '_ninja_' thing and promptly started panicking about comas and hallucination. "As a matter of fact, I nearly had a heart attack the first time I saw a map of the Elemental Countries. Looks nothing like what I can remember from mission briefs." And the roof hopping ninja that triggered her one and only panic attack. She couldn't forget that ill-fated walk to the library if she wanted too.

Minato finally spoke up, a hint of incredulity lacing his voice as he stared at her. "Is that where you learned to fight then? Your style doesn't match anything in the village and there are the occasional times you overcorrect when training with me, like you're used to more reach."

Shikaku sat bolt upright at that reminder, having thought through and discarded many doubts about her sanity already. "You fight too well not to know your style inside and out. Even the academy instructors agree with that. Is _that_ from your past and not from your okaa-san?"

"Yeah. We called it combatives back then." Natsumi shrugged idly, unsure where this tangent was going but willing to humor them. "It was taught to all soldiers in the army I belonged to before my death. It was a mash of a lot of other styles, from the martial arts used around the world at the time. And no," she pulled a weird face at the reminder of her second mother, "kaa-san didn't really teach me anything before she died."

"And that's where you got the habit of going out at dawn and dusk to train?"

Natsumi eyed the blond on her right skeptically. "Yeah, and?"

"It's a possibility then, though not a very good one." Shikaku mused almost to himself, taking in the bewildered girl with mismatched eyes across the camp fire from him as she stared at him, surprised. "Think about it, what if your previous life was before the Sage of Six Paths? Reincarnation was said to take a _minimum_ of five hundred years. How would anyone know if no one recalled their previous lives before? Legend does hold that there were massive super powered nations that far back, and the world might have changed over centuries. You said you could recall dying, right? What if you were reincarnated with memories intact?"

"Shikaku-kun, I haven't discarded the possibility that I'm _hallucinating_ all of this." Natsumi threw up her hands, opened her mouth to ask the resident mind walker a question and was derailed by the look of almost absolute manic glee on the blond's face. "What- Inoichi?"

"I'll be able to tell! We're trained to catch that kind of detail when looking through someone's mind." The mind walker leaned forward, intent on getting into the girl's head. "And we'll be able to tell if you're just suffering from delusions or badly implanted memories."

"Or flat out insane." Huffed Hiashi, almost ignored when the Yamanaka got up hurriedly and practically threw himself on the ground next to the girl.

"Look me in the eyes and concentrate on your past life."

(ooo000ooo)

The other boys milled around thinking through Natsumi's little revelation while Inoichi explored the girl's mind. The rabbit was rescued from charring and eaten, a portion saved for the two distracted members of the group.

Their attention was sharply drawn back to the Yamanaka heir hurriedly scrambling for the bushes, leaving Natsumi to groan in pain, lurch upright while listing to the side, and lunge clumsily to catch the other eight year old's longish hair before it ended up with the blond's lunch on the forest floor. "I already said getting gutted was a _bad experience_, what the hell were you thinking, exploring _that_ memory?"

"Sorry!" Inoichi gasped between heaves. "Just-urk!"

Natsumi made a face and closed her green left eye as she held her other hand onto the tree the mind walker was next to. Her sense of balance was shot, and neither the pounding headache nor the blond now dry heaving into the bushes was helping dull the horror of her last life's final moments. "That was… extremely unpleasant."

"I made you feel the memories, too. Wasn't supposed to happen." Inoichi muttered dazedly, looking a cross between severely nauseous and honestly regretful. "Didn't really realize that if you recalled being killed, I'd feel what it felt like to be gutted too. But I don't know enough about my clan's jutsus to keep either of us from experiencing that again."

"Inoichi-kun? Natsumi-chan?" Shikaku's childish voice drew their attention back to the others. The Nara had gone pale under his tan and the rest looked no better off. Natsumi was distantly proud of herself for putting that gaping fish expression on the kekkai genkai users' faces. "Is she sane or not?"

"She's not crazy!" The blond whooped suddenly, all but jumping upright and startling the girl into taking a few steps backwards in case he started laughing manically and demanding all their dango, _or else_. With how this night was going, she wouldn't put it past the Yamanaka heir just yet. "I mean, yeah, not entirely working with a full length of ninja wire, but given what happened to her that's almost to be expected."

Natsumi took offense to that. "Oi! I think I'm doing well enough for being on my own, _thanks_."

He waved a hand in the air as if to dismiss her words. "You need some serious therapy, now hush." The mind walker staggered his way back to their little circle of friends, grin still affixed to his face as he rapidly sorted out a crude summary of what the girl knew and what he now knew she knew. "Thousands of years of history, Shika-kun! Three different languages, working knowledge of a few others, countless hours of schooling in military related matters of the time, even _years_ of combat leadership experience!" The grin only slipped as Inoichi worked back to the memory that threw him harshly out of her head. "Definitely needs _some_ kind of therapy, not the same we give for traumatic physical injury and losing teammates, but something all the same. She's just suffering from a severe case of survivor's guilt, disassociation with reality, and a few other major things. Since Minato-kun's pulled her out of the worst of it just by asking for her continued company, she's been working through the issues she could identify. And now I can help her with the rest."

She flipped him off with a scowl, stubbornly ignoring her deathly pale and very concerned kouhai on her right as she sat down again simply to keep her knees from shaking. Damn the mini mind shrink ninja and screw his therapy to hell. She was _fine_, damn it.

Then Natsumi thought back to her frequent nightmare of desert nights, the smell of blood, throbbing pain and _ohmygodisthatmyspine!?_

Okay, not fine. Not even remotely. But she was working on it!

Everyone else now looked less like someone had whacked them upside the head and was beating them bloody with a frozen fish, Chouza even started snacking again as he considered the mentally unfocused girl while Inoichi all but gushed about her past life and the _psychology she had studied_.

Not crazy or insane, but the hallucination angle was still possible. And again, if someone you hallucinated said you were sane, were you? Natsumi bit her lip and stared into the small camp fire, struggling with her own head and feelings as the others pressed Inoichi for answers. The only problem with that was logic and pain. Not that there really was any to finding something you read as a leisure hobby was somehow true, but if she was hallucinating or in a coma somewhere in the desert she thought she died in, how to tell without killing herself here? She did always hate how Minato's kid had been treated in the manga she read. Would saving her little blond kouhai and his soon-to-be wife get the littler gaki killed later on down the line, or solve most of the problems before they became S-class threats to Konoha? Was it even a problem?

"Natsumi-chan? You alright?"

Minato's worried voice called her back to the present, and to the little niche she had carved out for herself here, insane or not. Blank, mismatched eyes slowly refocused on worried, bright blue of her first friend in this life.

"Yeah, I will be eventually." She risked a quick look to Inoichi, not at all surprised to see the knowing look in his lavender, pupil-less eyes. "Inoichi-kun will help me see to that."

\V/

Natsumi did eventually write out the choppy, military style, bastardized psychology she had been taught for Inoichi to all but devour in return for her 'therapy'. He did come from a clan of shinobi that also dabbled in psychology on the side when not in the interrogation department of T&I, and in a world of hired mercenaries and killers the triggers and warning signs of an unbalanced mind in their ranks had to be somewhat the same as her first life. She did so only with the understanding that if he wanted to _use_ any of it, he wasn't to mention her past life to anyone else in his clan. He only agreed because the reincarnated girl was uncomfortable enough with only the few of them knowing of her past life, even if she had decided she wouldn't be getting much farther on her own and told them herself. Having keenly felt that kind of uncertainty in the girl-woman's mind just before he brought up her earliest memories, it wasn't any hardship for him to agree as long as she abided by his advice.

Inoichi insisted at minimum on weekly therapy to work through her issues, much to the girl-woman's horror. Said therapy would only happen when the group managed to get one of the academy student accessible training grounds for themselves with varied clan backings, since Natsumi was _not_ comfortable telling the current Yamanaka clan head just why she needed therapy to use one of their sound-proof rooms. Which the girl was certain she didn't need.

At _all_.

There was a twenty-seven year old career soldier inside her sneering at the thought of shrinks and barking to _drop a pair and move on, soldier! Crying about it won't help shit! _Mental health checks were always dreaded in her past life.

They refrained from going through her mind again, which Natsumi was pathetically thankful for. She wasn't sure how Inoichi missed most of her thoughts on Naruto, Kurama the nine-tailed demon fox, Uchiha Madara, Minato and Kushina, and what she knew of shinobi happenings in a few decades, and didn't want to risk that scare again after she had finally thought through what it would mean for a mind walker to stumble upon later the same night Inoichi first took a look.

Hizashi was the one to bring up informing the Hokage about her knowledge first, since it could be considered prior command experience if you tilted your head to the side and squinted.

"I tried, for the first year I could coherently string together a solid thought." Natsumi blithely informed them all one afternoon a week after their camping trip in the Nara's back yard/clan training grounds. The academy had let out and they had met up on the nearly abandoned practice grounds for taijutsu practice, with Shikaku taking a nap nearby and Chouza positioning nearby for refereeing the matches, since anyone going up against the Akimichi clan heir was just asking for a broken bone. Currently, they were stretching for a full out general melee before pairing up for what practice they could fit in the time they would have left. "But consider how hard it would be to convince Hokage-sama that I wasn't a spy or some kind of distraction sent to harm the village, given the war going on outside the gates. Hell, I wasn't sure I was _sane_ at the time. Still not too sure, so it was probably a good thing the secretary he has thought I just wanted to visit him for some childish reason and never let me through."

The misplaced soldier was mostly certain that both Uchiha Fugaku and Hyuuga Hiashi both still thought her completely insane, whatever the Yamanaka clan heir said or not. _Fair enough_ was all Natsumi thought about that, because as she said she had the same doubts the first nine years of this life and had moments even now with Inoichi's reassurances that she _wasn't_ insane. The Yamanaka didn't have all the parts to her mind puzzle, after all.

Thankfully she wouldn't hear it again that day, or other variations of poking from Inoichi, as a certain red haired girl, and self-proclaimed rival of the current holder of the 'Rookie of the Year' title, screeched to a halt in front of a bemused and exasperated Minato. "I challenge you to a spar, Namikaze!"

It was always amusing two watch the two of them argue at this age, but this afternoon Natsumi risked missing something potentially hilarious to tell Naruto about his parents later on if she survived long enough to look at Mikoto, who was splitting her time between looking between her reluctantly admitted best friend and the clan heir her parents had told her she would be marrying as soon as he made jounin. She really didn't know what to make of the girl with her new 'not insane' mindset, the girl who had apparently abandoned her best friend's kid to the orphanage, and later on the streets, while she played house with her clan head and ignored the fact Naruto was the splitting image of Minato. She occasionally had the same thoughts about Fugaku even before Inoichi took a dive through her head. "So, anything new with you, Mikoto-san?"

The older Uchiha girl made a small smile to the only other kunoichi around, odd as Natsumi was known to be, as polite and 'formally distant Uchiha' as ever staring out but relaxing to something approaching pleasant near the end. "Not really, Natsumi-san. Kushina-chan has stated fuuinjutsu lessons with Mito-sama, which leaves me with a bit more free time than before."

"I heard the Uzumaki clan is really good with seals." Natsumi looked back over at the red streak that was Kushina, admiring the shade of crimson the future jinchuuriki's cheeks were turning. "I imagine it's hard to make her sit for calligraphy lessons with that kind of energy, though."

Since the boys' attention was more on Minato trying to turn down Kushina's attempt to challenge him since it was _supposed_ to be a group spar, only the Nara heir could claim to hear the two of them and he really could have cared less about the topic of discussion.

Mikoto was a bit surprised that the slightly annoying girl that had all but wielded the two of them together had that kind of clan history. "They are?"

"What, you didn't look up her bloodline and kekkai genkai the moment you knew her clan name?" Natsumi gave the Uchiha girl a lopsided grin. If it was a bit sharper than normal, eh. She wasn't that good at hiding when she was irritable or even upset yet. There wasn't much of a point at the moment. "Uzumaki is one of the major bloodlines from Uzugakure, and a few of their women have married high ranking shinobi of our village. The hidden village there is known for their fuuinjutsu experts, and they have a vitality based kekkai genkai which Kushina is from."

Slapping a hand over her eyes, Mikoto sighed heavily as her shoulder slumped. "Damn, and here I thought she was _unique_. You're telling me there's more like her?"

Natsumi nodded faux importantly with a barking laugh. "And all of them are rumored to be just as hyper as her. Hard not to be, when they have high chuunin or low jounin level chakra reserves by this age bracket."

The girl winced at the mere thought, looking over at the ill-tempered red head getting even angrier at Namikaze's repeated refusals, no matter how politely phrased. "Kushina-chan! We're going to be late to Mito-sama's!"

Swinging around to check the sun's position, Kushina screeched in alarm and all but vanished in a streak of red, taking the Uchiha girl with her.

Leaving a bemused blond, indifferent boys, and a smirking raven haired, dual eyed kunoichi. "Well, that was interesting."

"I don't know why she keeps doing that." Minato rubbed the back of his head, looking in the direction the girls had left in. He liked Kushina, but she always wanted to spar instead of hang out and they really only had so much time before the clan kids had to be home for their family training sessions.

"Pigtail pulling." Natsumi offered, way too innocently to be believable as she fell into her ready position with Fugaku mirroring her in his clan's own resting stance across the field.

Inoichi was the only one to laugh, in hysterical bursts that took him to the ground, and the rest decided they didn't want to know after a good look at Natsumi's 'innocent' grin.

\V/

The rest of the academy year went by as easily with few hiccups, with a few struggles here and there that the small group of academy student solved by heavily abusing the knowledge of the only one of them to actually see combat so far. Natsumi was oddly amused by that and by the few time the twins and the Uchiha heir had asked her advice on their own homework.

The girl-woman tried to skip out on her therapy a time or two, Minato dragged his unique sempai back to the psychology obsessed ninja in training, said therapy happened anyways. Natsumi only tried once to completely remove Inoichi from being able to force her into talking about her other life, and the blond boys only had to get the Hyuuga twins to block her tenketsu points and Shikaku to fully paralyze her once just so she couldn't fight it. That did mean that Hizashi, Hiashi, Shikaku, _and_ Minato got to hear all the details of how she and her patrol had died her first time around for themselves. They abandoned the rest of that day's therapy and a few of their clan's training times just to screw around and cheer up the 'walking dead' girl, which took most of the afternoon. Fugaku and Chouza were told later that same night what had happened so they wouldn't bring up any bad memories by accident.

The end of the first academy year was dedicated to unlocking chakra coils in the clan-less students while the clan kids were set up with beginner's chakra control exercises to do. It was one of the few areas that the misplaced soldier's prior life knowledge didn't cover, and she was slightly nervous about it.

Minato had maybe five minutes in which to panic over the thought that Natsumi wasn't born with enough chakra to activate her coils as the kunoichi herself struggled to follow with the instructions given. The end of that five minutes gave him another reason to worry as the flair of chakra that proceeded the unlocking of the ex-soldier's coils became visible, just with a color that wasn't blue like the others when it exited the tenketsu points if they had enough.

Natsumi's chakra came out a light purple, and in higher volume than any other girls' other than Kushina's.

She was rather indignant about the lilac color once the group managed to gather before the winter break, and was still muttering vile things about her unknown father, the only prospect they concluded that could have affected her chakra in any manner. Her final comment about the oddity was, "What good is _purple_ chakra anyways?"

"We would like to know that as well, Natsumi-chan." An affable, gravelly voice answered the kunoichi from behind the group wandering to the marketplace, since that was where they split up for their various compounds or homes. The mid-sized group of academy students turned nearly as one to see the war strained Sandaime Hokage smiling down at them from under his wide brimmed hat and over his smoking pipe. Next to him was someone none of them knew, but individually figured was some kind of specialist from the hospital from the way he was dressed in a mix of scrubs and ninja gear. "Would you mind letting us take a look at your chakra system?"

The dual eyed girl nodded to the military leader of the village, turning to look at a rapidly paling blond at her side with a crooked grin. "Of course, Hokage-sama. Oi, can you tell the caretakers I'll be back much later, Minato-kun?"

"Actually, I've been meaning to invite you two over again." Shikaku suddenly announced, wide eyes still on the Hokage waiting patiently. "Come back to my clan's compound, Natsumi-chan."

(ooo000ooo)

It would have been funny at how worried the boys were for her, even the two sticklers holding out on deciding her sanity, if it hadn't been for the scare all of them had been given recently.

Even if they weren't doing anything wrong, because there weren't any laws of keeping one's past life from your Hokage after all. But being snuck up on by said Hokage wasn't a laughing matter so Natsumi jumped into the diagnosis the hospital had given her once she saw the two groups, telling it once to the Hyuugas and the older Uchiha, who had actually graduated three weeks early but was waiting around for his proposed genin team to come back to the village, waiting outside the Nara clan walls and again when Shikaku pinned her with a mildly anxious look from between the Yamanaka and Akimichi clan heirs he was standing between. "High spiritual energy compared to a much lower physical one. That caused the discoloration in my chakra. Usually, it's the other way around." And _green_, as produced by medics when healing, not purple. But that didn't need to be spread around. Quieter, she gave an aside to Minato, hopefully out of the recovering Nara clan head's hearing. "If I didn't have the habits I do, it would have been _worse_."

"Well, then. I'm glad to hear that it wasn't anything serious, Natsumi-chan. Would you and Minato-kun like to stay for dinner?"

Natsumi gave Shikaku's mother a wry grin, ignoring the arched eyebrow the shadow user's father was giving her for her apparently unusual chakra composition and coloration. "We didn't tell the caretakers at the orphanage we'd be later than usual, ma'am. We should probably get going."

"Oh alright. But the two of you don't be strangers now." Aikido smiled down at the only girl friend her son had, and the blond child that had included her.

"Yes ma'am." The dual eyed girl nodded to both her and the other boys, giving Nara Shikai a bow. "Nara-sama. My thanks for letting the boys hang around while I was at the hospital with Hokage-sama."

The clan head nodded once in acceptance of her gratitude, waving one bandaged arm with only a wince as if dismissing the need for the thanks. "Call me Shikai, please. There are way too many Nara's around for formalities. And leave off the 'sama', chibi-chan."

"Sure, Shikai-san." Natsumi bowed again and all but dragged Minato out of the Nara compound. She started to fill in the bemused blond boy with the smaller details as they walked back to the orphanage they both lived in. "Hokage-sama wasn't really alarmed besides what the coloration would mean for me. Apparently, strange colored chakra pops up from time to time and the only concern is that I work on the physical half more than I have. There's even a clan with _white_ chakra somewhere in the village. I do have to wonder if that means there were others who could recall what they had been in another life." She was carefully leaving out that a higher physical core of energy wouldn't mean jack other than a fitness freak or insane hyperactivity. Which meant she was still the only one to have her unique circumstances in Konoha's medical history.

"Well, that's good, right?" Minato asked as the plain building they lived in came into view. "Means it really wasn't a fluke, or something the Shinigami is going to come after you for."

"That's morbid, Minato-kun. And here I thought my sense of humor was dark."

That was not something she had thought about herself yet. Damn blonds.

\V/

The second year of academy instruction for Minato and Natsumi went by without the same amount of events that occurred in their first. A few birthdays were celebrated and Minato got to pay his taijutsu coach back by helping the dual eyed girl with her throwing stance and grips, though she had better accuracy than anyone without a doujutsu. The curriculum got even harder, meditation was introduced, the three standard academy jutsu were practiced, and a few inches were added to many a midget according to Natsumi. Other than the kunoichis of their year discovering their hormones for the first time, it was almost uneventful.

Natsumi found the fan girls and the multiplying talents rib cracking hilarious, much to the dismay of the boys she socialized with the most. They had held the hope she would at least get annoyed with the encroaching girls before laughing her butt off. Kushina just found them horrid examples of what a kunoichi was supposed to be and scorned them all. Mikoto showed them why no Uchiha fan girl had ever succeeded in tempting any Uchiha clansmen from the shinobi profession with murderous intent especially aimed at the girls gossiping about her recently graduated betrothed.

The other two girls soon found themselves lumped in with Natsumi during any practical exercise regardless of what year of the academy they were in as the other kunoichis in training let their skills fall by the wayside in their attention seeking. It continued in that vein until Natsumi _finally_ got fed up with the high pitched squeaking and squealing occurring over half of _her_ boys in class and the waste of time on the kunoichi sensei's time and told the boys with the most fan girls how to suddenly occupy the vapid girls' majority of free time.

Hey, Inoichi _had_ told her that getting possessive over her friends was normal, a long awaited sign of recovery, right? Well, something like that anyways.

Hyuuga Hiashi's left eye twitched once Natsumi was finished explaining just _why_ her plan would work during lunch in the second year's classroom, they were eating indoors since it was raining outside. It kept on twitching even as his twin started slamming his already bandaged head against his desk repeatedly. Uchiha Fugaku, who had the luck to have a D-class mission to fix the academy roof with his new but slightly older genin team earlier that same day, looked as if someone had told him she was a kami reborn and managed to prove it after slapping him across the face. Namikaze Minato was just a laughing heap held up by his own desk, though admittedly it sounded a bit hysterical.

Slowly raising his head off his desk where it had rested for most of the day, Shikaku pinned Inoichi with a dark look over his folded arms and behind Chouza's suspiciously shaking shoulders. "Your clan deals with psychological warfare, it's practically their _thing_. Why the hell haven't your clan come up with this yet?" The shadow user refrained from commenting on _Natsumi's_ skills, as everyone that knew about her already knew the girl-woman's seeming eclectic skill set and the two behind her didn't have a clue about that yet.

The mind walker spluttered around a mouthful of rice, still staring at the lead of the trio of kunoichi in awe of himself. Progress! A bit later than he would like to see in the girl, but an improvement all the same.

"Look, you don't even need to start out small. They're idiotic enough to believe anything at this point." Natsumi started rubbing her temples in irritation, flat out ignoring the knowing look in Inoichi's eyes. "As long as enough of them hear that you're looking for girlfriends with certain skills that require a lot of attention to develop, they'll be busy competing with each other to even direct enough brain cells to bother you. They'll leave you alone, the gross mass of our generation of kunoichi won't be massive wastes of space, a win for everyone. Pick a cardinal point and shout it if you have to. I can understand wanting a distraction, with the war and all, but this is getting a bit much."

"And soon, please. Dattebane." Kushina tagged on with a firm nod, rolling her green eyes in exasperation when a group of whispering and giggling girls tripped their way into the classroom only to stop and glare at the girls already talking to the boys they were fixated on. "This is just embarrassing."

Mikoto nodded along as she chimed in. "The faster this is over with, the better."

"We'll return the favor, honest."

Minato finally caught his breath and peered up at Natsumi. "What do you mean by that?"

His sempai grinned grimly, echoed by both Kushina and Mikoto. "You'll see eventually."

\V/

The end of the second year of the academy gave weight to Natsumi's promise. More than a few shinobi in training had been tagging after Mikoto and started in on Kushina, asking to assist them with just about everything much to their shared ire.

They solved that developing problem by corning Natsumi and asking what she did when presented with a persistent suitors. She had a working solution for the boys still in effect, after all.

The girl-woman in question raised one eyebrow, wondering about the intelligence level of the kids around her, when said cornering happened in a closet of all things. "I'm apparently creepy looking enough that no one's tried to ask me on a date." The misplaced soldier gestured to her mismatched eyes as if to prove a point even when she _knew_ it had to do with her attitude and not her looks. "Dear old kaa-san is to thank for that. Though I don't expect that to last for long, given the curves I'm developing." She finished, poking at her own chest and hips in turn to draw attention to the expanding dimensions she was growing. The joys of puberty, take two.

"You know," Mikoto mused, looking at each eye and the separate colors they held, "you could probably use a genjutsu to hide that."

Natsumi considered the possibility, then shrugged the suggestion off. "Why bother? I've got my kouhai and Chouza-kun, and even Shikaku-kun helped a time or twice with a lot of griping, to scare off the beginnings of even my meager admirers, and the eyes kind of identify me to everyone else. If I suddenly showed up with two matching eyes, a few people might just think I'm a spy or something." The boys actually only chased off suitors because the girl-woman had admitted to them that even _thinking_ about going on dates made her feel like she was robbing the cradle just a bit.

"Chouza-san, huh?" Kushina's eyes gleamed with a wicked light as she recalled the Akimichi heir. He had started to wear the main parts his clan's signature battle armor every day, and already had more bulk than most other academy students. If you ignored the fact he didn't like confrontations and was pretty easygoing unless you insulted one of his friends, he was imposing to look at. "Do you think he would mind helping us out too, dattebane?"

"Chouza-kun's good like that, just get him a snack of something and he'll help." Natsumi gave them both a lopsided grin. "It could even be store bought and he'll still appreciate it."

\V/

The last year of the academy went even faster than the first two, with the ever looming academy exams on the horizon and the expectation of assisting in the war effort haunting their dreams. The rumors of Uzugakure's destruction made the rounds in the break between years two and three, and a certain red haired Uzumaki princess had been absolutely shattered for a long while after the confirmation of her home countries' destruction.

Without Mikoto around to bug, bother, and annoy during her free time that year, Kushina started hanging around the only other kunoichi she could stand to be around for longer than five minutes. Natsumi sympathized with the red head, seeing as she still couldn't deal with many of the other students being taught along with them even with Inoichi's best efforts bent to that aim. Many of the girls, and a fair few boys, all wanted to poke and prod at the Uzu shaped hole in the fuuinjutsu princess' heart but Natsumi, knowing intimately how much it hurt to lose that part of yourself, simply listened to Kushina when she wanted and kept quiet about it when she didn't.

The Uzumaki girl also had a massive amount of chakra control tips, and she freely exchanged them for Natsumi's taijutsu pointers once the misplaced soldier explained she had higher chakra reserves than most kunoichi did, and almost as much as a few of the boys.

Minato tried to ease the other girl into their ever shrinking group by asking what kind of things the red head did, only to end up listening with fascination to Kushina extol the wonders of fuuinjutsu and what it could do. Shikaku slept through it, Inoichi gave up understanding not even a few minutes into it, and Chouza munched through three bags of cookies while it was going on.

It was times like this that made the misplaced soldier miss her other three boys and the sniping that never ended between them, but Fugaku was out of the village on patrol with his team and the Hyuuga twins were running communications to various sentry posts within Fire Country with their own jounin-sensei and surprisingly _Mikoto_ as their third kunoichi teammate.

Natsumi came back to the conversation when Kushina finished off her impassioned speech with the fact Mito-baa-sama would be taking her on as a full time apprentice, and that one of the sannin was coming back to the village to take on a genin team. "Like who?" That rang a dull bell, something about Minato's next step in his shinobi career.

The red head looked over to the other kunoichi, pursing her lips. "From what Mito-baa-sama said to me, the sensei is supposed to be one of the sannin returning to the village, dattebane. I've got a special 'circumstance' that keeps me from a normal shinobi career, so there needs to be something done with the other two that would have made up one of the genin teams." Kushina scoffed at her 'special circumstances', a worried frown on face. "They were hoping there would be a slightly uneven number of students graduating this year, supposedly someone they had thought would fail last year didn't."

Natsumi dimly recalled that the Uzumaki girl inherited her fuzzy, still murderous 'tenant' just before Mito-sama died and a few days after she was kidnapped by foreign nin, Iwa maybe, and carefully suppressed the pity and pain she was feeling. Kushina would hate that the most, after all. The sannin she had talked about had to be the Toad Sage Jiraiya, since Minato did end up signing the Toad Contract before his death at 'fuzzy's' claws, and the sannin supposedly taught him enough fuuinjutsu to create the next jinchuuriki's seal. The reminder of the ticking clock on her friends' lives had her blinking back tears while staring blankly at the nearly empty room.

Shikaku did finally sit up at that piece of information, distractedly giving the girl-woman a slightly confused look for her inattention. "You're at the bottom of the class rankings, right Kushina-san?"

"That's not my fault, dattebane! Stupid buushin clones." The Uzumaki girl muttered to herself viciously. "Stupid E-ranks jutsus!"

Natsumi shook her head sharply once to clear it before shrugging at the shadow user. "That would leave such a team with two kunoichis. It wouldn't be sorted that way, Shika-kun. As a matter of fact, I don't think we can count on traditional team sorting while the war is going on."

"Isn't that the point?" Countered the lazy preteen. "Who would argue 'untraditional' with a _sannin_ teaching?"

"What way?" Kushina asked with a pout, even if she was sure her class ranking would be brought up again.

"The top and bottom of the class, rounded out by one of the students in the middle. That's one of the traditional team sorting's." Quirking a lopsided simile at the red head, the misplaced soldier huffed a laugh. "There were three of us aiming for that middle position the whole three years, now that I think about it. Shika-kun, one of the Aburame kids, and myself."

"You were _aiming_ for average? Why, dattebane?" Kushina sounded horrified, probably by the very idea that some of her classmates had sabotaged their _own_ scores.

"It's kind of traditional for Nara clan, even if everyone already knows we're smarter than we let on." Shikaku shrugged in a boneless way that caught the girl-woman's eye. "A few even went so far as to take the bottom ranks."

Natsumi took a totally inappropriate moment to wonder if the Nara clan had similar flexibility exercises as she did, and what they could possibly do with that, before turning to the red head to chip in her own observations built up over the previous two years.

"I did it just to see if I could, but that changed to fulfilling my goal specialty's requirements about half way through the first year here, and I think the Aburame kid was aiming for intelligence work instead of the tracker division like most of his clan." At the incomprehension on the Uzumaki girl's face, the misplaced soldier tugged a hand through her high tail and tried another way to explain the convoluted way the wartime version of the academy _actually_ graded the students for the girl that hadn't seen the rather transparent and horrible acting done the first month of instruction that gave most of the trainee ninjas a good idea what to look for to narrow their specializations earlier than they normally would have.

This _was_ a _shinobi_ training academy, and they were at war after all.

"There is an unspoken but widely known agreement between the Jounin Commander and the AnBu Division Commander that if a student can dupe the instructors within a certain margin about the real level of skill they hold until the months leading up to the final exam, you're a likely candidate for AnBu training right out of the academy. The few trap specialists we have currently actually are moonlighting as the class clowns, they display their working knowledge against chuunin level opponents almost every day and are graded on their successful pranks and upkeep of their troublemaker covers and storytelling rather than their homework. Homework which I don't think was ever once completed by a successful trap specialist before. I don't know what the genjutsu and iryou-nin specialists do to advertise their skills, but I _think_ the medics just intern at the hospital. That's one of the few more straightforward self-advertising methods I know of, but then again they have almost insane requirements and control _just_ to be able to use medical jutsu. I also know the Intelligence Division take almost exclusively from students that can maintain a nearly exact sixty percent success and a forty percent failure rate, mixing the subjects you fail and pass at, for at least a full year." After wracking her mind for anything else, she turned to the boys still in the classroom. "Did I miss anything else?"

"Hunter-nin and trackers." Inoichi added calmly, without missing a beat. "Hunter-nin have these little chakra puzzles and hints scattered around the academy that leads you to them, kind of like a scavenger hunt, but you have to find a part of them first. Usually a team of students try to tackle that on their third year if they think they're good enough. Trackers take the kids that can spot and go looking for them, but that mostly ends up being the Hyuuga, Inuzuka, and Aburame clans. Then there's what Minato-kun's aiming for." He added with a grin, jerking a thumb over his shoulder at his fellow blond.

Said blond was almost beet red when Kushina turned to him to find out what he was trying out for. He blurted it out before she could give him more than a curious look. "Command. I'm trying for Chuunin or Jounin Commander, AnBu General, and the Hokage's seat." He waved one hand at the various shinobi in training seated around him. "I have to gather up specialist candidates from more than one division and hold them together without injury or homicidal attempts for at least a year. I've got Intelligence," Inoichi threw a sloppy salute to the red head, "AnBu," Natsumi waggled her fingers discreetly under her folded arms, "general chuunin or jounin candidates," Chouza and Shikaku both nodded, "the twins for trackers, and Uchiha Fugaku for Military Police… since everyone knows that's where most Uchiha end up."

"Which, now that I think about it," Natsumi chimed in again with a wide, evil grin, "that means Minato-kun's got the largest group and the longest record ever attempted in Konoha before. Uchiha-_sama_ and the Hyuugas still keep in contact, even if they've graduated. _And_ more than just a few of us are future clan heads." She nodded importantly then snickered at the future Yondaime's embarrassed expression and his slinking posture under Kushina's wide-eye stare. The misplaced soldier was more than a little sure there was a case of mutual attraction going on there. Or at least respect.

Finally gathering her wits, the red head started to sort that information with what she already knew. "But wait, what about genin teams? If you're all already picking specialties, does that affect who's assigned to which team?"

"Pretty much." Shikaku picked up the thread of the conversation again, now that most of the explanation was out of the way. "Special Ops candidates normally get a retired AnBu or hunter-nin as a jounin sensei to keep an eye on their emotional health and pre-training polishing, tracking teams usually get either a support orientated jounin or a still active hunter-nin since tracking is easier than subduing captives, intelligence normally gets assigned to generalists teams for field experience before being banished behind desks to deal with the legions of paperwork. Everyone else get distributed among that line up since they usually end up being support ninjas."

Kushina thought about that for all of five more seconds before exploding. "That means I'm out of the running for Hokage, dattebane!"

"Nope, you still qualify." Natsumi interrupted before they attracted the attention of any instructors passing the classroom, or even the group of students a few chairs over. That wouldn't help her complete the challenge posed to those in her chosen field. "I'm trying for AnBu, remember? They're all known to be a bit quirky, so keeping company with a possible one has a wide margin of error. With Mikoto-chan as Military Police or genjutsu specialist and me as your third division candidate in AnBu, you meet the minimum requirements. Especially since we spent most of last year together. If you can keep meeting up with Mikoto-chan while hanging out with us, you're golden." She snickered as another thought crossed her mind. "That was how the Sandaime Hokage-sama managed his candidacy with _his_ teammates, though he had a general jounin candidate and a genjutsu specialist, so you're just doing the same thing with an all kunoichi team. A Nara's worst nightmare." Shikaku's eyes widened and his jaw dropped in horror, eyes locked on Natsumi's gleaming mismatched ones.

The red head gapped at her for all of a minute. Her little rivalry with Minato had waned halfway through second year, but she still did try to beat the boy at a spar now and again. To hear that he was aiming for the same position as she was, even if he hadn't said it outright, rekindled that dwindling spark of competition in her. The boys all able to covered their ears and the misplaced soldier laughed as the Uzumaki girl crowed her success of the first step to Hokage as loud as she could, shocking the shadow user off his chair. She then launched into an impassioned speech about how she was going to beat Minato to the hat, no matter what! _Dattebane!_

The girl-woman expertly ignored her kouhai's betrayed expression at the news. She was getting rather good at that.

_Come to think of it_, Natsumi mused to herself a little later, as the very late temporary sensei finally got into the classroom to begin the lecture on POW handling regulations only to step on a cleverly hidden trip wire and get a face full of sticky feathers courtesy of a loud mouthed red head, _in a wartime footing both Naruto and Kushina also qualified for trap specialists for their pranking skills as well as combat ninjutsu specialists for their insanely high chakra levels_.

Though with how the blond jinchuuriki had been outright hated in his childhood, she was sure that those marks of achievements had never been given to the poor kid since Konoha was at peace during that time. There probably hadn't even been _ANBU_ recruiters checking over Umino Iruka's shoulders and picking the best at subterfuge for their own division without a war to fight outside of the village's gates.

(ooo000ooo)

_She_ had royally screwed up.

The instructors were trying to catch her out with knowing more than an average academy student should. Natsumi had two encounters of verbally dodging and bullshitting her way through a few increasingly pointed conversations before she caught on that they were on to her.

She panicked for all of ten minutes before common sense reasserted itself. It had to have been the explanation of the academy's sorting system they had given Kushina that was overheard, though only part of it by how they chose to deal with her. Thankfully, the instructors only thought that she could comprehend more than she let on, and was aiming too high as a result. But that still left the misplaced soldier in a bit of a bind.

There were five more months of the academy to go, and giving up now wasn't an option Natsumi was considering. She knew AnBu candidates that failed in the academy test were given infiltration specialist tags on their records, but she wanted the AnBu one, damn it! Inoichi had told her to pick a goal and concentrate on it when memories of her past life started interfering with her concentration in this one in one of their sessions, so she had picked AnBu out loud and Minato's and Kushina's survival in her head.

It was something that she had wanted in another life, special ops appealed to her. But in the US Army, when she was alive last, females were not allowed combat roles. Shinobi were less concerned with a kunoichi's ability to procreate, since they were all started on hormone therapy pills developed by the Slug Sannin herself after graduation that stopped menstruation until the counter dose was taken, assuming they survived long enough to take it.

Natsumi knew she had been a damn fine soldier in her last life, all honesty aside. She didn't argue with orders and marched when told to, fought when needed and talked her way through a lot, but there had been a few things her gender had denied her that grated her battered feminine sensibilities. She also knew that she could still reach the point for AnBu consideration after graduation even if she failed the challenge, but that would only be after she 'matured' enough to hold a cover identity for long periods of time.

She wasn't sure how much maturing she had left to go before she hit her second childhood… but then again, isn't that what her life was now?

Leaving aside taking the infiltration tag for admitting she had been better than her scores said, she could either run or hold her ground for AnBu. Running would mean being fast and slippery enough to prove she had what it took for ANBU, but there was still a chance it would still earn her infiltration since she still did fail the challenge. The last option was much harder but would guarantee her AnBu candidacy. Holding ground would also cover information gathering and informant turning, something she wasn't all that sure about in the first place. She would have to ensure the instructors came to the conclusion someone was playing a nasty trick on her, and she was honestly bewildered by the sudden attention.

Easier said than done, _they_ were chuunin level.

\V/

… Or maybe that wasn't the hurdle Natsumi thought it was supposed to be.

Honestly, for an establishment that dealt with training _ninjas_ of all things, why was it so easy to infiltrate?

Admittedly, a few of the locks and traps had given her a pause, mostly because she had never seen them before and spent at least five minutes checking them visually before even trying to disarm or go around them. And she knew she was wasting time carefully checking each and every room for anybody and anything out of place, but hurrying now and screwing up even worse was a nightmare she had frequently had leading up to this afternoon.

Afternoon, because night was just so _cheesy_… and she had a curfew. Embarrassingly enough on its own, but getting caught after curfew as well? That she would never live down in the orphanage.

It was also easier to hide her slowly lengthening body, clad in the darkest clothing she had, in the various shadows thrown by the early evening sun. Slipping by the instructors had been something she played at often throughout the last two and a half years, so that wasn't much of a trouble to begin with.

Besides, why trip a well hidden alarm when she could be behind the trap's range before it was even armed?

Luck was with her, the main sensei for their year had left for the day already. Unluckily, it seemed as if Hiruki-sensei knew what he was doing in securing documents.

Thankfully, she had thought to inform the others what was going on beforehand.

Kushina had been aghast that their freely offered advice, not to mention the requirements for Hokage that had been explained to her, had injured her chances for her 'dream' and had thrown practically everything she could at Natsumi to help her fix the misstep. Including a few scrolls on fuuinjutsu that the girl-woman was sure the Uzumaki heiress wasn't intending to give her.

The misplaced soldier felt terribly guilty about not mentioning them to the red head yet, but she knew Minato learned from Jiraiya enough to make the seal he used on his son, and Jiraiya wasn't a master at the shinobi art of fuuinjutsu yet. Kushina could have possibly helped, but Natsumi was mostly sure the seal used to contain the Kyuubi no Youko in Naruto had been a rushed hack job, as brilliant as that had been later on.

Minato was smart in his own way, but blind in others. Natsumi intended to learn enough to help her future Hokage either find another way or not need to lose his life for the village at all, damn it. No one in that family deserved it.

But for now, small simple seals were all she could do. Mostly through copying already existing seals.

Carefully peeling off the chakra draining tag she had gotten from Kushina's stores of practice seals, Natsumi drained the chakra from the alarm tag Hiruki-sensei had sloppily copied to seal his cabinet holding the student's records. Once the sloppy tag was inert and simply a piece of paper on the wooden doors, the AnBu candidate carefully peeled it off with a kunai gained from Mikoto to replace and rearm later. First checking her gloves given to her by Hizashi to ensure they were tight enough not to slip and snag something or leave her chakra signature behind, she then eased the point of the kunai around the edge of the doors, listening for the clinks of metal that would tell her where any hidden traps were.

When all she could hear was a wire trap, probably projectile in nature given the sensitive information that couldn't be replaced easily, Natsumi stuck the kunai back under her left forearm and slowly inched the cabinet doors open. She could see the shuriken launcher only by the gleam of oiled metal deep in the wood's dividers. It was aimed at the general height of the heart on an adult's body, _almost_ overhead for a short academy student.

She could also just see the trigger mechanism and the trip wire on the back of the cabinet door, which looked like she needed a hook with a long reach to prevent it going off. That she didn't have.

Well, maybe wire would work to lift the latch worked into the wood that would pull the trip wire and launch many a sharp spinning thing at her head.

Uchiha Fugaku had sneered at her for her clumsy misstep, but forked over a spool of the high quality razor wire his clan favored to use in battle. Lightweight enough to hide easily, slightly difficult to control, but stronger than standard issue by far. She had it coiled around her right wrist.

Surprising how helpful the Uchiha clan was even if they pretend they didn't care about you.

Loosening the coiled length of flexible, razor sharp metal, she used her left hand to hold open the cabinet door and her right to catch a loop of the metal over the trigger. She eased it upwards, not letting up until she heard the trigger latch in the safe position.

There wasn't anything else obvious, so she eased the doors open the rest of the way and gave a silent breath of thanks to her friends when nothing shot out at her.

Now in, it was ludicrously easy to find her own record and scan it. There had been a few complaints from a fellow kunoichi in training, one Kyoko that she only vaguely recalled from the first year of the academy. A note of an exceptional espionage attempt from the same year. Second year only really had one item of note, and that was a confusing one about tactical planning and comprehension in regards to crowd control and a  
note of merit from the Yamanaka clan member that did academy student mental health screenings at random through the years. Thankfully, she never had to see Inoichi's uncle about the state of her poor head. Third year held the report currently giving her a problem.

It hadn't been an instructor that overheard the group, which was a relief. But there wasn't a note of who had reported even a part of their conversation to the chuunins. Confused, because other people had to check her records over the years and that kind of notation left more questions than answers, Natsumi made a split second decision. Deftly taking out Minato's, Inoichi's, Chouza's, and Shikaku's records, she fished out another scroll that Kushina had given her to copy anything written as she glanced at the girl's in question.

Her scroll, like the other clan kids, had her clan's spiral symbol stamped on the rod holding the paper. Unlike the others', it had elegant script on almost the entire outside. Knowing the Uzumaki's as some of the best fuuinjutsu experts around, she had no intent to even touch the scroll unless the clan heiress said she could.

Shaking her head sharply to bring her wandering attention back to what she was doing, Natsumi copied the scrolls, rolled them up, replaced them, and started cleaning up after herself.

Rearming the shuriken trap was the only part she was unsure about, but the cabinet apparently automatically armed that when the doors were closed. Checking herself over, the five scrolls of information she had stolen, the tools her friends had willingly given her, and the office one last time, she reapplied the seal to the front of the cabinet in the same crooked way it had been slapped on. Setting Kushina's chakra leeching seal on top, she let out the small store of Hiruki-sensei's chakra to rearm the tag.

One last look around, and Natsumi slunk out of the office through the window that only opened with a certain jutsu Fugaku just so _happened_ to have acquired with his recently activated doujutsu, his red swirly eyes that recorded everything exactly and stored it away in his brain, that same morning and passed on to her since the door was now armed to alert ANBU of any intruders. She had a date with a certain Nara's back yard.

(ooo000ooo)

Sarutobi Hiruzen chuckled softly as his crystal ball showing the academy instructor's office went dark without his chakra feeding the image. There wasn't anything else to see now that the girl had left. "I see now why you brought this up to me. She's a remarkable little kunoichi. Quite an array of talents cropping up these last few years." The Sandaime puffed on his dying pipe to ensure the embers were out as his guest nodded once.

"She's one of my hopefuls, and with that neat and clean operation right there I have no objection to her introduction to AnBu eventually." The man in the bear mask on the opposite side of the desk replied as he took his eyes off the crystal ball and locked gazes with his Hokage's. "I take it you don't have an issue with us taking her and a few others a few months before graduation?"

"I would wish for them to undergo at least six months of genin team exercises, but I have a sneaking suspicion both you and the war won't let me do that to them."

"They won't disappear into our world without a squeak, Sarutobi-sama. I'll make sure they keep up with their little friends for the first two years." The man took off his mask and seated himself in the chair normally reserved with visiting dignitaries. A grin stretching his scared lips higher up on the right side than the left. "But you wanna know something interesting? _She's_ the first one to _complete_ the AnBu academy challenge in the last five years. Knowingly at that."

Hiruzen paused in filling his pipe and blinked. "There are children able to _do_ that without knowing?" The Hokage was supposedly all knowing and unflappable, but Sarutobi wasn't against Bear _knowing_ he was surprised in this instance. They had worked together for a long time now.

"Naras." The burly man grunted out as the Hokage lit his pipe. It was both identification of the children to do so _and_ a reason they did it, and the Sandaime's disbelieving expression turned into one of bemused understanding. "They all admitted to hiding skills, though. AnBu's too _troublesome_ for them. Nearly all other AnBu candidates run, hide, or bullshit their way through and are dropped or reevaluated depending on how bad they do at it. Last candidate to hold her ground and try to find a way to do answer the final test like her, was me."

"So you want her to replace you."

"Do you blame me? Mesuji-chan is _good_ for an academy student." The man gestured in the direction of the Nara clan compound with an impatient frown, knowing the girl was there now with Namikaze's little clique of friends and her prospective AnBu captain, Wolf, was shadowing her and the information she got out of the academy. Wolf was one of three AnBus tagged for discrete mentoring if the students were good enough, and the only one to draw a student who won the academy challenge. Bear foresaw a lot of bragging that night from Wolf on behalf of the little kunoichi if she passed the questioning portion, and he continued on ignoring the amused expression on the Hokage's face as the Fire Shadow deuced the path of his thoughts. "She can fully admit when she screws up, she can plan good missions if that was any example of her talent for it. Halfway decent stealth skills and mid mission improvisation. Good taijutsu, adequate chakra levels, could work on her chakra _control_ more, damn good aim if somewhat bad throwing habits with anything other than senbon and kunai. Methodical, quiet, and damn protective and possessive of her friends." Here he paused, a flash of his canine peeking out. "I could go on, but that would make me sound like a stalker. Point is, Hokage-sama, we've been watching her for most of her second year. She'll be a good AnBu operative in time. An even better AnBu General with enough help."

"I noticed you didn't say anything about the other children."

"They're okay. A few need some serious help getting their skills up to par for trainees, but no one else has Mesuji-chan's potential. There were a few others, but they're clan kids. Need special permission for them." The career AnBu grunted irritably. Clan kids normally made up the top ranks of all academy years, simply because they had mentors in their own families that saw to it they were better than the civilian raised kids or orphans. Unless the less trained kids pulled together a group of friends like the Namikaze kid did, then the ranks were a bit more even as they helped each other out. "But we can use normal protocol for easing the others into AnBu, Mesuji-chan will just see through it. We'll have to use prodigy protocols for her."

The older man blew out a lungful of smoke and a regretful sigh before reaching for the girl's actual records on his desk. But Konoha _did_ need more and better assassins, with how many the war effort ate up. Mesuji Natsumi would make a good one, able to hide under the cover of her young age and gender before taking out a target. The Sandaime Hokage's only regret as he handed the corrected files off to the current AnBu General was that it was likely he would never see how good of a ninja these children would make. They would either die in the shadows of the special ops division, or start hiding more than just skills when not behind a painted clay mask.

(ooo000ooo)

"Okay, that's strange." Nara Shikaku remarked out loud, for the benefit of the shadow Natsumi seemed to have picked up during her break in of the academy.

Hizashi noticed the shinobi following her when the girl came into sight, and had alerted the others before the AnBu trainee could reach them. Natsumi herself hadn't noticed until Hiashi drew her attention to the extra set of eyes. She had gone a bit pale, but divvied out the tools she had on her to the ones that gave them to her and the records she had snatched. Depending on how long her shadow had been there, the ninja would have already known that she stole the records and had possession of the tools of an active duty nin.

Now they all were currently bent over Natsumi's records after a quick look over their own, trying to puzzle out what had happened to risk the girl-woman's chances at AnBu.

Minato scratched on cheek and looked around at the pale or tense faces. "Maybe we're thinking too hard?"

"How hard should we be thinking? We're talking about _chuunin_, Minato-kun." Chouza reminded the blond orphan, hand frozen halfway to his ever present bag of snacks. "Natsumi-chan already said it was kinda easy to get in, so they probably already knew she would try for her records. The instructors probably were trying to gauge her skill level with this."

The silence continued for a bit until Fugaku suddenly growled, drawn features shifting to irritated in a flash of crimson eyes. "What if _this_ was Natsumi-san's final test?"

Blank looks were all that he was answered with until the shadow user nodded sharply once in agreement. "Everyone knows the AnBu candidates get tested before everyone else, and anyone hearing the tail end of the ANBU challenge would automatically think of the three months of review before graduation, not half way through third year. We're still learning combat tactics for elemental jutsu for the moment."

"But that's unfair." Kushina interjected, scowling. "That would mean anyone trying for AnBu has less instruction than anyone else graduating the academy."

"That would be the point, Uzumaki-san." A deeper, gravelly voice broke in before the red head could continue, making all the preteens whirl around and scramble for weapons they did or didn't have.

A man in a snarling wolf mask was kneeling right behind where Natsumi had been before she had practically launched herself out of her own skin. The figure cocked his head to the side at the panicked reactions, causing a few embarrassed blushes, before continuing in the same mono-toned voice. "In AnBu you may not have the training or skills need for a mission, and anything could go wrong on infiltrations. We needed to see what Mesuji-san would do when confronted with that scenario before deciding if she passed or not."

The misplaced soldier blinked at the man. Her heart was still pounding and her nerves stretched taught with how easily the AnBu agent had snuck up on her and the others, and how close he had gotten before willingly revealing himself. That was an _unreal_ level of skill the masked nin displayed. "So… are they in trouble for helping me or not?"

"You're not going to ask if you passed?"

Natsumi blinked again, then sneered at the figure in frustration. "That's not important right now. Why the hell would I care if I passed or not when _they_ might be in trouble-!" She cut herself off mid shout and studied the figure before changing mental tracks as common sense reared up over the panic in her head. "How long have you been following me for?"

The masked man snorted once. "Good answer. Now I need Mesuji-san to follow me, and bring the information she managed to steal from the academy with her."

Fugaku took it upon himself to gather the records up, flashing his sharingan to record each of them with his back to the AnBu agent before handing them back to the woman in a girl's body. Natsumi took the pile of scrolls from him with a nod of thanks to the Uchiha heir. "Ready, Wolf-san."

The wolf mask bobbed again and the man rose to his feet in one fluid movement. The misplaced soldier saw how much better the man was at it than her, and could finally see how the AnBu managed to sneak up on Hyuugas of all things. _The extreme of the extreme athletes_, Natsumi mussed to herself while adjusting her armful of scrolls. _I'm almost one myself, career soldier and all. And Minato has gotten even farther than me in turning into that kind of ninja, for all that he's been doing it for a far shorter time. _It had to be how most ninja developed that kind of skill and talent, with chakra only helpful in preventing most of the wear and tear heaped on the body. Problem was, the girl-woman was now mostly sure she hadn't been doing near enough to condition herself for this kind of life. The exercise she had were based on a life without that kind of spiritual and physical augmentation, for a job that was more reliant on overall endurance and stamina as needed physical skills than developing the strength of individual muscle groups and fine muscle control in pitched battle needed for ninja.

_In short_, the girl growled to herself and took the hand of the AnBu for a shunshin to wherever he wanted to take her, _this is going to be a bitch and a half to just survive._

\V/

Mesuji Natsumi was in the hospital, according to the instructors when asked about her. She returned to the academy two and a half months after that botched meeting, paler and thinner than she had been the last time the others saw her. The Uzumaki girl only knew the other was still alive because one month after Natsumi had disappeared with the AnBu agent Wolf, her missing fuuinjutsu scrolls had been returned to her, and she mildly recalled giving them to the dual eyed girl in the hopes they would help her keep her AnBu candidacy.

Even before Minato and Kushina managed to effectively kidnap the girl out from under the nose of the worried and fussing chuunin sensei for their class, hilarious as that was to watch, it was apparent that the misplaced soldier was a bit worse than just exhausted.

The red head Uzumaki slapped down a privacy seal she had worked up under Mito-sama's teaching, mostly to prevent the same situation of being sneaked up on like last time, before turning to the girl already sprawled out in a boneless manner on the ground and exploding with all the panic and worry she had felt for the last two months. "What the _hell_ happened to you, Natsumi-chan?"

"Nng."

"Well… that was descriptive." Chouza remarked lightly as he pulled the girl upright with one arm.

Natsumi gave an aborted wave, sagging into the Akimichi's grip as she became light headed with the change in position. "Good news, bad news."

"I'd think we'd like the good news first, Natsumi-chan." A pale Shikaku asked her quietly as Chouza gently lowered her back to a proper sitting position.

A nod and a huff of breath answered him, a hollow mockery of the bark-like laughter so common from her before the start of their third year at the academy. "Good. Yay AnBu, 'n not trouble."

"I think she means she made whatever requirements for AnBu candidates and we're not in trouble, I hope." Minato translated for his sempai after a stunned moment trying to sort out the slurred words and choppy sentences.

"And the bad?" Inoichi prodded one thin arm, wincing at the bruises decorating every square inch of the girl visible.

"Bad… yay AnBu. Inoichi you _teme_."

Shikaku _barked _like she used to, except his was a laugh as worried as it was cynical and devoid of actual humor, startling a listing Natsumi into completely falling over. "Bit late for second thoughts, _Natsu_-chan."

Giving up on being vertical for the time being, the girl simply opened one green eye and glared at the shadow user from the ground. "Know that, _Shika_-kun. Means not enough _time_." She blinked, shifting only a small bit to get into a better position, one that put less pressure on her myriad collection of busies. "And ow. Can't forget _ow_."

Kushina fluttered around her head, still worried and not at all confident that touching the other girl was a good idea. "Um, should we take you to the hospital, dattebane? You don't look too good, Natsumi-chan."

"I've got… free time now. Sort of." Since laying down seemed to have given her a fourth wind, so to speak, Natsumi pushed herself back upright carefully. Her _bruises_ had bruises, she was a little surprised that was actually physically possible. Who knew? "Stupid academy. Worked my tiny ass off trying to get free to tell you guys what happened, and I gotta go to school too? Unfair."

"Sempai? I think we would like a full answer now." Minato took hold of the girl's bruised shoulders and made her look into his eyes. "Please, Natsumi-chan."

"Mmm kay, Mina-kun. Wolf-taicho took me to Bear-san 'n a few other students. Bear-san said good work, but you screwed up. 'M chakra sensing 'n control poor, situational awareness also sucked." Squeezing wrenched shoulders when her exhausted mind wandered was as unfair as schooling _and_ AnBu training the same day. "Then got to _work_. Pre mornings with Squirrel-san, taijutsu 'n reflexes. 'N mornings with Wolf-taicho, throwing weird 'n stuff. 'N Crane-san 'afor lunch, meditation 'n jutsu. Lot 'o other things, theory 'n med-medical, after lunch. In _masks_. Rinse 'n repeat. Two _months_, kouhai."

'Wolf-taicho?' Shikaku mouthed to himself. Then his brain started to work again and kicked him upside the head. "Wait, you've been training these last few weeks? With others? _With AnBu?_"

"Mmm." Natsumi managed another bleary nod without tipping over. "Improve to return. Had to hold ground ina spar with Wolf-taicho. And ow. But I'm back now."

Inoichi frowned at the wreck of a girl as the others finally let her pass out cold. The girl-woman still didn't really care if she lived or died, not entirely sure this was all real or not despite his best efforts in that direction. Something he couldn't blame her for, not after having seen and felt what she had seen and felt once upon a time. That meant she was probably being more reckless than she would have been otherwise. But up until she had admitted to him in their last therapy session she was starting not to care if this was a wacked out dream, since she liked them all and genuinely didn't want to see any of them hurt, even her Uchiha-_sama_, he would have labeled her partially suicidal. She still probably was to a degree, but he had to wonder what kind of damage AnBu would heap on her already cracked mind.

Or maybe it would help? He could understand her calling him a teme, it was his suggestion to pick a goal that landed her in this mess. But it was her own drive that let her work pass the obstacles in her way. Would something more demanding than her old life let her grasp tighter to reality, or just let her slip backwards into bad habits?

\V/

The academy was slowly emptied of the more skilled students during the last three months of their third year.

As soon as a division of the shinobi corps felt that one or two of their candidates would no longer benefit from a class setting as much as getting field experience the students were yanked and slotted into preexisting teams to rush them out into the battlefields to give them a taste of what they were going to be doing for the rest of their lives. Sometimes they came back to the academy bone white and silent, and sometimes they didn't. Not all of the civilian raised kids noticed themselves that the students on 'medical leave' were actually already graduated and moving on with their shinobi careers, but the last month of academy classes were rather echoingly empty and rumors were hard to ignore.

Mesuji Natsumi had been yanked a full two months before graduation, only to be seen once or twice around the village with a hitai-ate around her left bicep and a harried, exhausted expression on her face. Uzumaki Kushina left the academy for the last time a month and a half before the final exam, rumored to be studying under Mito-sama herself for some urgent reason. Namikaze Minato was yanked by the arm after a certain famous white haired sannin along with Yamanaka Inoichi and a kunoichi neither knew that well three days before the last month proceeding the final exam.

Nara Shikaku and Akimichi Chouza were the only ones to actually take the academy exams that year in their group. They and the passing career genin or jounin candidates were divvied up and sent out after their classmates into the rumored last few years of the Second Great Shinobi War.

* * *

_AN#2 : I will freely admit Natsumi is more than a little f #$ing crazy and slightly cracked in the wrong way. Who wouldn't be in this situation? No, it won't really get better either. She'll always have that sliver of doubt just under the surface, she'll just manage it a bit more every chapter. Before you yell that no SI was supposed to tell the others that they were aware of the future because of a fantasy story they heard/watched/read, Natsumi didn't do that. She did recall a magna she read during her limited off time, but that wasn't the focus of Inoichi's mind diving. Her actual life was, and her preoccupation with the Naruto verse only occurred right before her last deployment. Yes the little she knew later became a driving force behind her actions, but it was something distant to her when she still thought she was either insane or hallucinating during the camping bit. And Inoichi was a bit distracted by her painful death to notice her off duty activities at the time. He really didn't have that long in her head before that came up. Why doesn't the others report our little nut job? I don't quite know yet, but it was mostly because she has been helping them, even when she really thought they were fragments of her shattered or drugged out mind._


	2. Of Genjutsu and Psychosis

**Disclaimer : **Naruto isn't mine. I have barely a thousand bucks in the bank next to my laptop, suing me will do nothing for anyone. I really have to look up that guy's name and do an actual one of these eventually.

**Rating** : T at least for bad language. And the idea of child sized killers. And crazy people with many issues. Oh my. Currently, anyways.

**Author's Note : **So apparently, there will be more than my supposed five chapters. Seriously, Jiraiya grabbed the plot and storyline and ran off giggling like a little girl after screaming at me that he was the _GREAT TOAD SAGE AND MASTER SPY! NO HALF TRAINED GAKI WAS GOING TO PULL THE WOOL OVER MY EYES!_ I really … okay, I have no excuse beside I didn't see this coming. I'm no longer going to postulate the general number of chapters any story will reach, cause I _suck_ at it, and realized I would have to rehash the whole Naruto storyline eventually since we're starting at the end of the _Second_ Shinobi War and Natsumi would absolutely _fuck_ up a number of plot lines just to keep in character as desperately half-nuts and in trying to keep Minato alive.

**Clinkzbone, Matron**,**Plalanx213**; the grammar, terms, and name you corrected me on for part one have been fixed, thank you for telling me. I'm sorry I was a little dense when you reviewed, **Plalanx213**, but I did eventually realize what you were getting at. Maybe a few more words like; _hey, you screwed up __blank_ _and __blank _. I won't get pissy hearing that. My pissyness is reserved for others that can't get off their soapbox about technical details when writing reviews. Yours' was brief and directly to the point you wanted to raise, perfectly fine and informative for me … after a brain-dead moment on my end.

For my reviewer who asked, that's you **snail24**, I read somewhere that the Third Shinobi War and chuunin through jounin was where the Shika-Ino-Cho team-up became famous for Intelligence's snatch and grab missions. I'm sticking with that, so we'll see it formed here.

**Nianque,** hello again;** TheSpiceOfLife-Insanity **and** Mybffisazombie**, awesome handles by the way; thanks for reviewing. I'm glad Natsumi doesn't seem like a typical SI who will solve everything with a flick of the wrist, but then again I have this thing for head cases. Let me know if she gets too Mary Sue once everything starts happening, but I have a number of roadblocks planned to keep that from occurring.

* * *

Part 2 : Of Genjutsu and Psychosis

_Who's to say we won't be thought of as ill-bred fanatics of a madman in fifty years by a different society able to see our situation in hindsight?_

_Adolph Hitler was considered a brilliant man in Germany back before World War II. Mahatma Gandhi was imprisoned for a while during that same war. _

_At the time, Hitler was a great leader and visionary, Gandhi was a political criminal. Now, Hitler's a madman and Gandhi's a revolutionary icon for peace._

* * *

Ninja psychology and shinobi mindsets were a fascinating subject if you had the time to study them. Paranoid with a curious bent, relaxed but ready for anything, self-assured one moment, cagey the next, opportunistic and skeptical to everything, a ninja had to be all that and more at the same time. Problem was, no shinobi was _that_ good and that slight, minor difference every ninja had between the two extremes was exploitable even if you really didn't know what you were doing.

The target this time was both at once more paranoid than anything she had seen before and more lax than most civilians that had the guts to work the trade routes during war time. He didn't seem too bright, though.

Panther peered at her target through the leaves and carefully flexed her fingers to complete the last hand sign for her supposedly 'original genjutsu' to settle on the man calmly strolling along the battered road that lead to one of the little farming towns just outside of Konohagakure's protective shade. It took a few minutes, but the man's head abruptly snapped to the side and he peered suspiciously at the undergrowth in the outer reaches of the forests, his hands giving away prior training in shinobi arts to her and her AnBu squad as they flicked to where small blades had been concealed on his person as he verified that he hadn't seen anything that needed to be killed. He cautiously continued on his way, hitting his civilian's confident stride after a few more minutes of nothing coming after him.

No matter how many times she did it, nor how many times Yamanaka Inoichi told her it wasn't magic or her delusions acting up, just _chakra_, the only odd jutsu she could use always felt and seemed more like magic powers than anything else she had ever done. How else could you affect another person by will alone? She wished she could use more of it than she could, but taicho had told her she would never be a ninjutsu specialist with her still horrific control over her chakra.

Her _only_ combat useful jutsu wasn't really a real genjutsu, which was the snag most shinobi tripped over in trying to sense and dispel it if they realized or knew it was there in the first place. It was simply an influence on how much information a target takes in, as explained to her by her taicho, convincing a target that the flash of tan, brown, or green wasn't a part of the scenery but the movement of some kind of impending doom and they had to defend themselves or be killed, or that the oddly hand shaped thing holding that rather sharp looking knife wasn't really there because it really was a coatrack.

It had developed from trying a common focusing technique using chakra that most ninja used almost on automatic to sharpen the senses when on mission, merely overblown in a heavy handed way that Panther once did on accident in a training exercise and realized that if it screwed her taicho up so badly, it was probably just as hard on another person they didn't like in AnBu. It took such a minute amount of her concentration to apply that an academy student could pull it off with their chakra reserves and control, something that she was not too long ago.

There was some discussion between Wolf-taicho and Bear-sama about having it introduced as a beginning part of the standard procedure in marking out infiltrators, if she could ever get around to teaching someone else how the jutsu worked. Panther wasn't sure how she felt about that.

Something else to talk to Inoichi about the next time she caught the blond mind walker on a day off.

Wolf-taicho touched her right shoulder, giving the non-verbal confirmation she was waiting for to go ahead with the second part of the planned ambush. He must have already conferred with the others of the squad while she was wool-gathering like a green recruit.

Panther obediently slipped off the branch she had been hidden on, silently landing on a studier one lower on the tree and jumping to the next available branch in her desired direction.

Another thing to wonder about when she had the time. Ninja traveling methods.

Halfway between the mark and the next town, the AnBu assassin touched ground finally in a clearing somewhat removed from the rutted animal trail the ninja would be coming along on, grasping at a skinned knee and whimpering like any good civilian child would when injured and alone.

Carefully standing up in the clumsy manner of a untrained farm girl, she would know since one of her 'training exercises' had her pitching in on a farm once the mission was over and she was waiting on a pickup, she weakly leaned against a tree and tested her 'injured' leg by shifting twenty percent of her weight onto it, keening lowly in the back of her throat once she got a little over thirty.

"Something wrong, little lady?"

Starting at the rough voice behind her, the girl turned around too quickly and lost her balance, landing on her ass with a graceless thump. With her grass green eyes watering in pain, long, dark and loose hair falling around her thin, pale, and patched kimono, she truly looked the part of a young war-starved farm girl that was injured and lost. "Who! Uh… who are you?"

The scruffy man smirked at her as he moved around the ancient tree and crouched next to the waif, thinking more along the lines of a free meal ticket than being suspicious of a young girl lost in the forest around an infamous ninja village. She was scrawny, had hair far too long for any serious kunoichi to stand, and the brat couldn't even walk. Easy pickings. "I'm just traveling here and there, little girl. But I heard you in pain, and what kind of man would I be if I left a little injured child out here all alone? Do you want some help getting home?"

A sniff and a wobbly, grateful smile had the man swinging the 'injured farm girl' over onto his back. He took special care of her skinned knee, keeping his arm under her thigh instead of around the crook of the joint. Mentally patting himself on the back on finding a cover that was even more believable than his original one because _who would stop some young girl from getting medical help just to question the man carrying her_, he never felt the wisps of razor wire that settled around his neck with the strands of the girl's long hair, aided by the still active bastardized genjutsu that pulled his attention to the scent of girl on his back, apples and… metal polish?

Two seconds later with a sound like a bursting water balloon, the Iwa infiltrator's head rolled down the tiny dirt road without the rest of him.

Panther back flipped off the corpse before it hit the ground, and before her own head was taken by the razor wire now held taut by Jackal and Horse. She took a few moments to whisk off the blood soaked kimono over her skin tight, short black bodysuit and mop up as much of the mess on her as she could while her teammates unpinned the wire's ends from the trees. Horse then coiled the thin metal back up while Jackal helped her frisk the corpse for the information the spy had stolen from the jounin assignment hall. Once that was secured Horse handed her back her mask and bent to heal her minor, self-inflicted injury as she took out the dark green contact lenses out and stowed it back in her odd contact case, right next to the dark blue ones.

Blinking her miss matched and pale eyes, she slipped on her mask and the parts of her armor Jackal handed to her piece by piece then looked back to where Wolf-taicho was observing. Their captain simply nodded to them, and one katon jutsu later only greasy ash, charred bone, the dull glow of molten iron, and the stench of burned pork remained in the clearing.

Two more targets until they could return to Konohagakure.

\V/

Jiraiya frowned absently as he noticed that two of his little minions were distracted that afternoon. The mandatory kunoichi of the team was sharpening her kunai while they loitered about, but the two boys he had been given, a future clan leader and an orphan like he had been once, had their heads together and were whispering furiously.

They were doing a piss-poor job of keeping the argument from him, even if the girl was happily oblivious to any disagreement between her teammates. Point in fact, he had noticed even if he was mostly distracted by the beauty bathing just beyond the tall wooden wall of the public onsen. Twisting around sharply in a whirl of white hair, the sannin slapped the bickering boys on the back of their heads with his ever handy sketchbook. Softly, of course. Wouldn't do for that busty brunette to hear it and draw the conclusion someone was around that shouldn't be. He had a reputation as a bit of a letch around Konoha, and she would probably hit first and ask later.

Leveling a glare at his two boys had no effect. After two months of genin training and an additional two months of D-ranked missions both of them lost whatever awe they had held for him. At least the girl was still biddable.

"You two should just shut up about her." Keiko-san spoke up in a normal tone of voice, both proving the sannin wrong about the direction of her attention and probably alerting the beauty he had been spying on. "Since it's been so long, you'll probably find her on the KIA lists."

Snatching up his so called students, all the while thinking _why did the old man saddle him with them again_; Jiraiya executed a hasty shunshin to their normal training grounds before anyone could come investigate the voice and dumped the load of wanna be ninjas once the familiar trees of training ground three came into view. "Do you want to tell me just what this is all about?"

The kunoichi pushed herself up, knocking both Inoichi-kun and Minato-kun off her back and ignoring them as they hit the ground again, then started to dust herself off with an annoyed air. "There's this annoying girl they know. Mesuji Natsumi-"

Sensing that this was about to go horribly wrong in a bad way, Namikaze was an easy going kid more often than not but he was starting to turn an alarming shade of red at the direction this conversation was going, the sannin clapped his hands together gleefully and turned to his two young, _male_ students with a broad, perverted grin plastered onto his face. "Why boys! Are you telling me you're fighting over a _girl?_"

Inoichi-kun's face screwed up like he was trying to wrap that statement around whatever argument they had been having, turning greenish around the edges like any other prepubescent, preteen boy would when confronted with a girl's affections or accused of favoring one, but Minato-kun's face lost all color at the bent the Toad Sage's mind had seemingly wandered. That was… unusual. Interesting. One of the two.

Jiraiya then turned to the harpy of a kunoichi who now had a face like she just bit into a lemon. That little comment of hers was well beyond anything he would accept out of a fellow shinobi. When worrying over the location and health of another ninja, one did _not_ make allusions to the death of said missing comrade in a nonchalant way, especially to the ones doing the worrying. That raised a whole lot of little red flags in his head about the girl's suitability as a kunoichi, and it wasn't the first time he had the same thoughts about the snot-nosed little brat. "Tell me about this girl."

Keiko-san huffed again, brushing brown hair out of her eyes and scowling at him. "A kunoichi that was in the same year as us, I think she went for one of the specialist slots. But they haven't seen her in three weeks and are starting to panic about it, Sensei. She was pulled out of the academy before anyone else was, even Uzumaki-san, and wasn't returned like about half of our year was after a few weeks." She snorted, crossing her arms over her non-existent chest and sticking her nose up in the air. "She was average the whole time we were in the academy, and was rather stuck up to the rest of the kunoichis while she was there. No great loss, I say."

The only question in the Toad Sage's head once the girl was done with her bitter report was _what crawled up your ass about her?_ He could see the girl mocking the concern maybe in a few years, most C or B-ranked missions were weeks long, even months sometimes, but at the rank and age they were at now? The concern the boys had was a good one. Add to that the twit's inability to let childish slights go, whatever it was about the missing girl that bothered her so, and it wasn't looking good for the kunoichi's future in the shinobi corps. Making a snap decision, since it was the brat's fault the beauty at the onsen probably wasn't there anymore, he dismissed her on the grounds he had to talk to the boys about ninja life and the toll it took.

Once Keiko-san was out of sight he leveled a stern look on Minato-kun, and the kid crumbled. Sort of.

Supposedly, Mesuji Natsumi-sempai was a slightly older girl that had taught him a few useful taijutsu tricks, and helped them all, them being the group of clan heirs and other noteworthy clan genin, out through the academy years. They were supposedly concerned because she had said she would be back by today and wasn't around like she said she would be. Jiraiya nodded along at the right points, noting where the orphan faltered and where the mini mind walker filled in for him. They needed to polish up their lying skills a bit more.

Reading between the lines told the Toad Sage much more than what little his kids were verbally, and intentionally, giving him. A skilled, older sister figure to a fellow orphan, or rather, a large group of brats if the small set of shinobi Namikaze gathered still met up as regularly as he thought they did. Since he had even overheard the snobbish Uchiha heir asking if his little minions had seen her recently, he had to conclude that was most likely. Something had them worried, but not something physically to do with the girl, they weren't concerned over her supposed death as much as they were concerned over her mental state. They knew nothing beyond when she was supposed to be back, just knew that this was the longest that Mesuji-san had been gone for.

So, someone that even the heirs of a large group of clans thought was important in some way, skilled enough to be of note to those looking over the academy for immediately useable talents for the waning war effort, and not currently able to meet up with her friends, probably not even in the village at the moment to begin with.

Adding that to the comment of Keiko-san's about the girl being pulled before even the next jinchuuriki, meant that she had to be either Hunter-nin or AnBu. And she had to _still_ be in whichever branch if she was on mission and missing her projected return date by a week without KIA or MIA alerts going out to all chuunin or higher ninjas holding the name Mesuji and whoever she was out of the village with. Even still, it was a horrifying thought to realize a friend of his boys was neck deep in that side of shinobi life. Kids this age should still be playing with garden weeding missions and bodyguard babysitting duties, in his humble opinion. War or no. But it would account for any worry over her mental state. Heck, even he was now slightly worried for the girl.

Ignoring the polite fiction his two blond brats were weaving for him, Jiraiya sighed gustily, letting go of the niggling idea of returning to the bath house to continue listening to the current gossip among civilians and tugging a hand through his unruly hair. "It's going to be hard, getting information on this girl of yours, if you can't tell me which black ops branch she's with."

Inoichi looked faintly stunned at the blunt question but Minato nodded seriously and dropped any attempt of pretense to match the sannin's direct confrontation. "She's AnBu. Wolf-san is her taicho. We only saw him once, but that's what Natsumi-sempai called him before her graduation."

\V/

The night before the now very late AnBu squad would make for home, their last target had almost gotten to Sunagakure only to be misled by the assassin on the squad into dead-ending himself in a canyon native to the region they were in, Wolf took a seat next to the small figure of Panther-chan perched on a rock similarly colored to her cloak and held out a ration bar for her to take.

Panther-chan, on watch for the first quarter of the night, took it doubtfully and inspected it with narrow eyes through her mask.

"You need to eat more."

She snorted before carefully picking the wrapper apart to keep the noise down. "Ate a while ago, taicho. While we were skipping along that deer trail and stalking some of our own on their way out." She took a bite anyways, peering at her captain in the fading twilight with miss matched eyes after she had swallowed. "What's wrong?"

Wolf cocked his head to the side and dropped the act, knowing by now that the girl would be suspicious of any favoritism he would show. Rightly so, since he used that mostly to alert the squad he wanted to talk with one of them and not to pamper the youngest there. Anything further meant he wasn't who he appeared to be and they needed to kill him before catching sight of Konoha. "How are you feeling with the kills you made so far?" She was being oddly subdued and not the mischievous assassin that had no problem messing with the other ANBU that tried hazing her, had been once the trees fell away and the scrub ground succumbed to sand. He was starting to wonder if the blood on her hands was weighing her down somehow, though she had never shown signs of it before.

The small figure shrugged, the motion almost lost in the dark and her oversized gray and tan cloak keeping the cold desert night out of her bones.

"Descriptive."

Panther-chan snorted lightly, losing the bland edge to her words as she accepted he was asking as an older shinobi to a younger ninja and not as her ANBU captain. "I want to go home and bug Uchiha-_sama_ and his girlfriend so he sneers at me so I can grin and pick on him some more. I want to bother Namikaze and Yamanaka about their sensei's habits, to go have tea with the twins, and talk fuuinjutsu with Uzumaki. But most of all, I want to do all that and make sure no one can murder them in the manner we killed these spies and traitors scratching at our doorstep." She made a throwing away gesture with the hand not holding onto the ration bar, since you didn't waste food you didn't have to cook while out of the village's walls. "Beyond that? I'm glad they're dead and we're not."

Wolf nodded once and left her alone for the rest of her watch, intending to get some kind of shuteye before his graveyard shift. That was good enough for him in the immediate future, though he made plans to drop off the younger AnBu with her blond friends. It was probably a good thing one was a psychologist in the making and she hung out with them when she could.

\V/

If he didn't know any better, Jiraiya would have said Hiruzen-sensei had been expecting him to ask much sooner about his boys' little missing friend than he had. For his excuse, tracking the name of a young girl and a captain's mask, familiar though that may have been, to a singular AnBu squad took some finesse in Konoha. Even for him with the recent boost to his reputation.

The Toad Sage drummed his finger tips on the arm of the chair he was occupying in the spacious Hokage's office, making polite conversation with the ambassador from Sunagakure while the older shinobi puffed on his pipe and looked through the drawers of his cluttered office desk for something. When the Hokage finally found the scroll he had been searching for, the sannin made their excuses to the ambassador and only pinned his old teacher with an exasperated look once the old civilian finally shut the office doors behind him. "So?"

"You never could leave a mystery alone, Jiraiya-kun." The scroll was tossed to him with little fanfare, the Sandaime directing a weary smirk to his most surprising student before blowing out a lungful of smoke and dismissing his AnBu office guards. All those years ago and standing between Orochimaru-kun and Tsunade-chan, he would have been hard pressed to find any worthwhile skills in the orphaned white haired boy with no family name he had been given along with their year's Rookie of the Year and the Senju heiress. But Jiraiya had his own surprises to bring to the table, along with his eventual interest in senjutsu, fuuinjutsu, and mastery of the Toad Summoning Contract. A master spy in the works was now sitting before him, one that had a surprising success rate given the unorthodox methods employed.

The young man, still in his early twenties compared to Hiruzen's age, which was rapidly approaching the half a century mark, rapidly scanned the ninja file in his hands, paled, and went back to the beginning to read it more thoroughly. The Hokage could almost _see_ the moment he read Bear's notations of Mesuji-chan's academy years, Wolf's additions on the kunoichi's skills, and _exactly_ where the AnBu assassin titled Panther was now. "I thought border patrols were only given to AnBu squads when one member was out of commission for whatever reason. Not to _season a younger squad member_."

Sarutobi sighed wearily, removing his pipe from his mouth and rubbing the bridge of his nose as his student's furious glare was leveled on him. Jiraiya had always been an idealist, something that even the shinobi lifestyle had been unable to cure him of and something he had been unwilling to erase from the younger shinobi himself. Unfortunately, the war they had been fighting was not helping in bolstering that streak of hope his student stubbornly held in a death grip. Border patrols were AnBu's polite way of saying assassination likely missions to weed out spies and infiltrators in the forests around Konoha. "We needed an assassination capable team to handle this patrol, given Intelligence is insisting that three known spies would be trying to return to their handlers this month. The ninja in question didn't protest-"

"Of course she didn't, she's _AnBu!_" The sannin exploded, ranting furiously at the older man about the age of the girl and the injustice of having someone so young listed as a B-ranked assassin. It was safer to let the Toad Sage yell at his old sensei, rather than a high placed shinobi berating the Hokage about the division of younger ninjas. Jiraiya's rant eventually wound down, aided by the injuries that still pained the younger man from the fight with Hanzo, and the real reason he had been sent back to the village in the first place without his teammates.

The war had ground down to an uncomfortable halt two months ago with the end of the three day long fight between the team Sarutobi the Professor, Kage of Konohagakure, had taught and Hanzo the Salamander, the kage level leader of Amegakure. The three jounins Sarutobi taught from genin on had already been known as the team of _sannin_, the three shinobi, before the fight with Hanzo because they represented the dream team of Konoha's visible ninja ranks; a ninjutsu combat specialist, a subterfuge specialist, and a medical support specialist; and were known for three way teamwork comparable to the understanding between twin shinobi. But the Kage of Ame had labeled them the _legendary three ninja_ before his retreat from battle, and the title had caught on _everywhere_ according to the information the white haired man brought back with him.

Orochimaru and Tsunade had remained behind on the front lines to ensure the newly named _Densetsu_ _no_ _Sannin's_ presence was still felt even if they were down a team member, Jiraiya's skills as an up and coming spy master aiding him cover his retreat as conferring with their old sensei as the only reason he was back in Konoha. The polite fiction of being saddled with a genin team now that the war was winding down instead of being redeployed was the cover for recovering from the worst of his injuries, a number of them gained from covering his teammate's backs during the epic length fight. Tsunade had been the one to initially order the Toad Sage back to the village for medical reasons, unable to treat all of the injuries Jiraiya had accrued in the field, aided by Orochimaru's stern lecture about taking care of oneself. The white haired man had been unable to argue in the faces of both the Snake Summoner's unusual worry and the Slug Princess' clinical evaluation and had left the frontlines to them as he returned with the reports and intelligence gathered outside the walls of the Village Hidden in the Leaves.

None of the great shinobi villages wanted to take on another that had both a kage and three other shinobi, now labeled _legendary_ by a legend himself, who combined held a kage's battle skills without the sensitive position the title held, without a lot of planning or sabotage to even the playing field. Frantic cease-fires were in the works from Ame, Iwa, and Kumo, leaving a large amount of ninja in all four villages antsy and tense with the lack of the usual missions and conflicts. Suna was secure in its position as Konoha's best support, and Kiri was oddly silent since the obliteration of a large force that tried to take out a good chunk of Sunagakure and failed due to a seven year old puppet master.

"So what would you have me do, Jiraiya?" Sarutobi puffed on his pipe as he calmly gazed back at his riled student. "At the time we sorely needed assassins, and she's doing well in AnBu by nearly all reports."

The Toad Sage only just kept himself from sneering at his old teacher. Doing well and half-baked was the assumption generally drawn from _that_ comment. AnBu was not filled with well-adjusted individuals by any account. Cold blooded assassinations purchased by wealthy civilians were the responsibility of AnBu, along with high profile seduction missions and kidnappings, and that sort of thing left its mark on even jaded ninjas. Jounin only took assassination missions and the like on when there wasn't enough ANBU to take all the missions directed to Konoha, and that was only during truly desperate times when they couldn't turn away the gold. He knew a few good natured AnBu members, his best friend outside his team was one, but they were outweighed by the number of AnBu he would never trust at his back given the type of missions they carried out. He never could figure out why the shadow ranks were so loved by civilians and green genin alike.

Hiruzen smirked a bit more broadly when the white haired man slumped into his chair, well aware that Jiraiya probably wasn't thinking good things about the shadow guards of the Village Hidden in the Leaves. He puffed on his pipe again, only to almost choke on the lungful of smoke at his student's next statement.

"I'll take her."

The Sandaime blinked, looking sharply over to where the file was in his student's hands before back up to Jiraiya's serious face. "What?"

"I'll take her on, Natsumi-san that is." The Toad Sage waved the file in his hands at his old teacher, consequently waving the smoke out the open window as well. He was warming up to the idea even as he justified it to his Hokage. "I wouldn't give Keiko-san long after her first C-ranked mission. She'll probably flake out given what I've seen out of her so far." The white haired man tugged his free hand through his mane with a gusty sigh and scowled out after the dissipating pipe smoke. "She'll be a career genin for her term of service, never see an actual battle, retire at twenty and probably seamlessly go back to being a civilian afterwards to raise two kids with a husband who wouldn't hurt a fly."

Hiruzen grimaced and tilted his hat over his eyes as he accepted his student's analyses of the girl on his team. Jiraiya was a good analyst of human nature, he had to be with his skills, and that meshed with the collective assumption among the academy instructors. They had protested his placing the girl with the two blond boys with so much talent initially to begin with, but she did have the scores at the time for a high placed genin team. "She passed my bell test, didn't she?"

Jiraiya grunted a grudging affirmative. "Only because Minato-kun all but hit her over the head with the teamwork angle to snatch the bells before deciding what to do with them. He and Inoichi-kun had to drag her away to hammer that through to her after her first pitiful attempt at getting a bell. Honestly, I would have dropped the girl before long anyways, she's way too set in her ways to adapt and be a good kunoichi above genin rank. Natsumi-chan, on the other hand," the scroll was waved in the air between the two of them again, "has both the history and skills to seamlessly join up with my boys if I drop Keiko-san. You could even argue that Mesuji-san's too skilled for a genin team, though she might need the experience to round out any rough edges in her general skill sets and someone to figure out _why_ she can't use anything besides this assassination technique she's noted for."

"Hmm… I have no objection to you taking her on, if the cease-fires continue." As a matter of fact, the Sandaime also had to find something else to do with the other three about genin aged AnBu agents as well as the five about chuunin aged AnBus remaining if the war truly was stopping with the show of power from Konoha against Ame. But if Jiraiya could figure out and solve Panther's difficulty with jutsus she'd be an A-ranked assassin in no time at all, able to take out other C to A-ranked shinobi by herself instead of E-ranked civilian targets to _maybe_ B-ranked ninjas in a squad now, and a good return for the sannin's time and effort compared to the girl that had them now and would never get to be a C-ranked general kunoichi at the very least. "You will need to make up a suitable reason to drop… Keiko-san, was it? Keiko-san onto the Genin Corps full time. One that preferably _won't_ get the civilian council up in arms over discrimination against civilian born ninjas, Jiraiya-kun."

The Toad Sage grimaced at the thought of telling the girl on his team he was dropping her. That was surely going to go over as well as a ton of bricks with Keiko-san, though he didn't see any real protest from his boys coming out when they got wind of her replacement. "Alright, Hiruzen-sensei. Let me know when Natsumi-chan gets back to the village and I'll swing by AnBu headquarters to pick her up."

"I have a better idea." Sarutobi smirked over his pipe at his suddenly wary student. "We can tell her now."

Before the white haired man could ask what the Professor meant by that, four figures suddenly jumped through the open window, landing in the crouch of reporting AnBu before the desk.

Jiraiya sharply took in the smallest member of the reporting squad as the team captain handed over their mission scroll and four individual reports to the Hokage to skim before filling it all away at the ANBU HQ. The cat mask on the young teen was painted with wide black curves up both sides, starting from her jawline to cover the eye holes and stretching to her temple, leaving the rest bone white. He pressed his lips together as he mentally connected the black and white feline mask to the AnBu title Panther.

_Hello, neko-chan._

(ooo000ooo)

"Ah, one moment Wolf-san. I need you and Panther-chan to remain behind." Sarutobi Hiruzen stated calmly as he lowered his lit pipe when Wolf, Jackal, Horse, and Panther tensed to leave the same way they had come in. The two named hesitated while the remaining half of their squad left to report back to AnBu HQ. "Remove your masks, please."

Straightening up to the standing position of a shinobi reporting to their kage instead of the crouched position of AnBu heeding the Hokage's will, both Wolf and Panther took off the painted clay masks hiding their features from view.

Natsumi raised an eyebrow when her captain's mask dragged the black hood off his head, and stared at the twentyish year old man when his identity finally perforated her surprise that she got to see her captain's face. Her captain was freaking _Hatake Sakumo_, if the silver hair and gray eyes were anything to go by. Then again, with hair that bright, it was no wonder her captain hid it behind standard issued head wraps.

But still, poleaxed by revelation that _Konoha's White Fang_ was her captain, she missed the initial greetings between the older men.

"-with the end of hostilities on the horizon, you do understand why we are bringing the issue up, Sakumo-kun."

Natsumi rejoined the waking world at the end of the Hokage's sentence, and briefly wondered what her kouhai's and Inoichi-kun's sensei was doing in the room as the older man puffed on his tobacco. She looked up to her captain, still slightly sidetracked by the man's gravity defying hair free of the hood. Wolf-taicho, or Hatake-sama or -san or whatever suffix she was supposed to put behind his name now she knew he had one to attach said suffix, had a furrow between his silver eyebrows, the lower half of his face still covered by AnBu's standard issue facemask like her own. He was a shocking lookalike to what Hatake Kakashi was drawn as, even without the tilted hitai-ate over one eye and porn in hand.

"I was more thinking to take her on myself, Hokage-sama." Sakumo drawled in his AnBu voice, the one that told them everything and nothing at the same time. "She'd be a good kenjutsu mistress once she has the reach for it."

The Hokage nodded absently at the news, dark eyes flicking over to his white haired student. "Until that time, I would like Natsumi-chan to be placed with Jiraiya-kun and his team as the kunoichi for Cell Seven. Not to damage the reputation any competence of yours, Sakumo-kun, but since young kunoichis are not generally apprenticed to an older shinobi by themselves until fourteen or sixteen years of age, it would be better all around."

That small furrow between her captain's eyebrows disappeared, and Natsumi had to hand it to the old man. That was a skillful twist to get two of his at _least_ jounin ranked shinobi to share a student. Then – _wait. _

_What?_

"Hokage-sama?" She blurted out, horrified. They were talking about _her? _Jiraiya was _Minato's_ sensei, and Sakumo was _Kakashi's _father!

The Fire Shadow smirked down at her as he blew out a gust of smoke. "You will be placed on Jiraiya-kun's team since the war seems to be over for the moment, and after you gain most of your major growth you'll be apprenticed to Sakumo-kun full time. Is that alright with you, Natsumi-chan?"

The dual eyed girl nodded furiously, ignoring that the question had been mostly hypothetical. When your shinobi warlord told you to march, you got to marching before asking how far or how long. "Um… what about my-_our_ squad, Hokage-sama?" She pointed to both herself and her captain.

"You will have to be replaced for the interim, of course." The older man nodded with a kind smile softening the amusement he had shown at her, in approval of the girl's worry. At least AnBu hadn't managed to affect that side of her yet. "You will be tapped on occasion when an assassination is needed from the squad. But only if another assassin can't be tasked with it." He glanced again to the white haired man standing impassively next to his desk, staring at the young girl.

"Of… of-course, Hokage-sama. Taicho?" She looked to the silver haired man standing next to her, inwardly panicking about the repercussions on the future as she knew it.

Sakumo looked down at his youngest squad member, smirking faintly at her bewildered look. With her pale but oddly colored eyes and that expression, she looked like the lost waif she really was and not the grim assassin the AnBu ranks knew her as. "You'll need to return most of your standard issue, Panther-chan. Keep a set of armor, a uniform, and a field kit, but replace the rest with standard genin grade gear for day to day use."

Honestly, he couldn't argue with Hokage-sama's decision even if he was taking his fourth squad member after his squad had _finally_ gotten used to the girl sized assassin. He had been of the opinion that Panther, _Natsumi-chan_, and the others snatched out of the academy deserved more of a childhood than they had and she would now get under Jiraiya's care. He was immeasurably proud of her for keeping up the best she could and becoming a good squad mate even with the handicap of her age, ever since he had been tasked with finding a new fourth member after Rooster's death on a recon mission in Kumo and got caught up in Bear-sama's skimming off the top of the academy graduates. The impersonal relations between AnBu members hadn't let him tell her that, and she probably didn't think of him as more than her captain on the rare times during the last six months when she could be out behind her mask, but this was a good way to make up for turning her into a killer. She was due some 'visible' time as a Konoha genin anyways, to keep up with her public image. The man rubbed one side of his chin, tugging down the facemask as he realized he was still covered. "You'll need to find a way to cover your AnBu tattoo now, too."

Natsumi-chan nodded shakily at his order, saluting him and Sarutobi-sama before bowing to Jiraiya and the Hokage and jumping out the window and disappearing before anything else could be dumped on her, something he really couldn't blame her for. Turning back to the other shinobi in the room, Sakumo ruffled his hair exasperatedly, making it stand up more than it had been. "You could have let me break it to her in a less formal setting, Hokage-sama. Hell, you could have given me a heads up beforehand."

"True. But that wouldn't have been much fun. It is always amusing to mess with my ninjas' worldviews, and messing with ANBUs' is a fun all its' own."

Jiraiya finally laughed, gesturing for the AnBu captain he knew rather well to take a seat as he did so himself. "That was Natsumi-chan? I was expecting someone more… substantial."

Sakumo gave his old academy friend a half serious glare after the Hokage nodded that it was fine if he wanted to sit. He knew Natsumi was a little too thin, he didn't need the reminder. "Saa, not everyone looks for a girl's measurements in determining how useful they'll be, letch."

Hiruzen harrumphed around his pipe, ending the good natured argument before it could get going. Knowing the two of them as he did, they could go all night if someone broke out the sake. "Sakumo-kun, I have a few things you'll need to pull a temporary member for your AnBu squad. But for right now, I've a few questions about Natsumi-chan before the two of you get caught up telling tall tales to each other."

Hatake cocked his head to the side, much like his mask's namesake or the man's family summons would when confused. "Oh?"

"This technique of hers, the one she uses to disorient a target as she wishes. I've heard much from Bear-kun about it. Do you know how it works?"

"Unfortunately, I can't do it even if I understand what it is doing. Though with what _she_ can do with it, I'm rather thankful she can't teach anyone." Sakumo grimaced as he recalled the girl trying to explain it to him after he caught her casting it on the worst of her hecklers in AnBu. He caught Jiraiya's inquiring expression and elaborated. "It's one of the reasons we've haven't missed a target with all the assassinations we've had recently and only a B-ranked assassin on the squad. A crude summery of the jutsu is a minute amount of flux in a double layered Hawk Eye technique, makes you think that flash of color out of the corner of your eye was someone coming after you or a flash of a blade and not just the scenery, or convinces you that the shape you can make out in the distance was only a interestingly shaped rock and not a shinobi. She made one of the targets skewer himself on Jackal's knives by playing around with it once. The poor sod never realized Jackal was there, and he was standing in full view waiting for the target."

It was possibly a start of a bloodline similar to the Hatake's White Chakra if it really was the result of the purple shaded chakra Natsumi had, but with the face the girl had made at that idea made Sakumo think she thought differently. It would be a pity if the little assassin was right, because that possibility was the main reason Bear-sama had initially assigned the girl to him in the first place. Although, she had proven her worth in the shadow ranks with her one and only jutsu even if she wasn't the start of something as grand as a kekkai genkai.

The Toad Sage winced and ran a hand over his mouth. That was something pretty powerful in the hands of a not yet thirteen year old girl. No ninja would be able to resist checking up on any kind of threat they caught sight of, answering the few questions he had over Natsumi-chan's rather high assassin ranking with her chakra troubles. "How does it do against the doujutsus? Or even those with heightened senses?"

"Haven't had the time to test it yet." The silver haired man admitted with a sly, wolfish grin showing a slightly protruding canine. "I suppose that is something you get to play with."

Jiraiya responded with a rude gesture to his old friend and fellow academy year mate.

Hiruzen opened his mouth to ask about the only other irregularity in the girl's file when one half of the AnBu team assigned to the marketplace appeared in a flash of smoke. "Hokage-sama, two shinobi from Kumogakure have just kidnapped Uzumaki-san."

(ooo000ooo)

Natsumi managed to return most of her AnBu kit without any issues, tucking the mask and tanto, which would never be returned to the general AnBu stores in her lifetime, away in a backpack as she left the AnBu headquarters and stepped out of the sight blocking fuuinjutsu array that hid the passage from civilian view. She was small enough that both fit comfortably in the overlarge pack with her few personal effects and remaining sets of kunai, senbon, razor wire, and the bladed, lacquered hair sticks Horse had helped her get when their mark had been some wealthy merchant with a liking for young girls a month before their last mission. Pity about the kimono and matching obi, but the two female AnBu members wouldn't have gotten rid of the bloodstains with any amount of cleaning products after the week long run to the border right afterwards letting them set in. Horse had even hugged her before she left the barracks with what little she had in possessions, and that had been… rather creepy, actually. At least Jackal had only waved goodbye at her.

The tiny tea shop that existed over the underground headquarters of Konoha's shadow guard was ran by a terminally forgetful old woman, current rumor from the trainees held her as the elderly mother of Bear-sama, who beamed and waved whenever the numerous and polite but drably dressed people came by her counter either to just greet her kindly or get a pot of tea to share between them. The newly benched AnBu assassin considered getting a pot of tea for herself and taking the time to think about that day's events trying to knock her for a loop, but her desire to jump her kouhai about her new circumstances won out over her desire to plot like some kind of fictional villain. Besides, she was a few days late to meet up with at least one person of their little group and her captain always found her no matter what she did.

Scratch that, she was nearly a full week late, and knowing Minato-kun's worrywart habits she had better get a move on.

The gaki had gotten better at kicking her ass in their infrequent spars since he became one of the Toad Sage's students. Unfortunately.

Checking one last time that everything that marked her as AnBu was hidden under the loose fitting standard issued genin corps uniform in green, given to her from supply in place of her AnBu ones, the dual eyed girl left the tea shop and struck out to Training Grounds Three. As infrequent as their spars may have been, she still knew that if the two blond boys had free time they would be found either there or at the Yamanaka's clan grounds unless they made plans with the others, and the training grounds were closer. So jumping up onto the tea shop's roof with the help of a nearby fence due to her short legs, she made for the third training ground from the Hokage's Tower.

The roofs were the accepted method of ninja travel while inside the village, simply because it _was_ so visible. If you went more than three roofs without being greeted by someone else even with a short nod, which normally covered a fourth of a district with how long one 'roof' was, AnBu normally pulled you aside and made sure you really were a Konoha nin and not an infiltrator. Even ninja on the ground were not sparred from the faux-casual identity checks, though the Uchiha Military Police normally covered that.

That, and the visible presence of the shinobi protectors of the village kept civilian moral higher. It was hard to fear for one's life when you can catch sight of the guards that would give their lives for you by simply looking around or up.

She had the rather flimsy excuse of being ANBU to answer the challenge to other ANBU, and that was the only reason her mask was within reach and not left in AnBu HQ like normal. Even knowing general AnBu hand signs wouldn't keep her from a short tour of T&I if someone wanted to make sure she was who she said she was. Her AnBu tattoo, something that would even raise the eyebrows of most shinobi given her age, was plastered on the back of her left elbow and covered by bandages doubling as arm wraps. She had to go back to the Hokage's Tower later and get a genin standard living quarters in some crappy apartment building to dump her stuff in, but that could wait a bit.

It was the first time she had taken the roofs without Horse and Jackal with her, or even Wolf-taicho, and kitted out as an AnBu, so the unfamiliar feel of her mask less face in daylight made her slightly self-conscious about her chosen route.

The trip was thankfully uneventful since Tsubaki-sensei managed to recognize and call out to her when she was passing the unusually busy marketplace near the clan districts, though her mind was spinning like the exercise wheel of a hamster even as she shouted a reply on her way past. She did get the eyeballing glare of an Uchiha policeman once, although that was probably from bouncing off an awning to cross one of the main streets rather than her current status as a Konoha genin.

_Hatake_ _Sakumo_ was her captain! It seemed like whenever she could settle her mind to this life, her past one smacked her upside the head with another person that she _knew_ was destined for a horrible end.

On hindsight, taicho was freaking _hot_. Damn her redeveloping hormones, but in another life she would have no problems being labeled a cougar just to wake up to that face every day. Which thinking about made her feel like some kind of deviant, because she wasn't supposed to be old enough to appreciate that kind of thinking yet. Or something. Was she old enough now so that it wouldn't seem completely wrong to say something along those lines? Half of her humor was built around perverted barracks jokes, and editing that out of her normal speech patterns was giving her a constant headache when talking to her fellow academy year graduates. She was counting down the years until she didn't have to hold herself back anymore.

Not to mention she caught sight of the newly legendary Jiraiya of the Sannin, the Toad Sage himself. Minato's sensei and Naruto's godfather, unmarred by the horror that was the Kyuubi attack and his student Pain's turn to Uchiha Madara's side. The relative age of the people around her sometimes threw her for a loop all its own, namely because Jiraiya hadn't had that wart on his face yet or the crags of time worn worry. Even the red streaks down his face were only halfway to the point she remembered.

But still! _Sakumo_ was the man behind the Wolf mask, the shinobi she called taicho for nearly a whole year! And he was so damn handsome it was unfair!

He wasn't famous yet, though she was sure that wouldn't happen until he established himself as a jounin outside of the AnBu ranks. From what little she could blearily recall, the White Fang of Konoha would end up on par with the sannin team members before his ill-fated mission. And the sannin team just fought a kage to a standstill not four and a half months ago, even if they all were supposed to be back in the village for whatever reason a full year ago now.

Natsumi had to wonder if Jiraiya-sama would have gotten a genin team even if he hadn't been injured before his return, she knew only because the smell of blood was a familiar one to the misplaced soldier and the sannin had the faint reek of blood. Fresh blood that was, rather than the stale stench she was so used to from traveling in bloodstained uniforms. The rumors around the academy at the beginning of her final year said _a_ sannin was supposed to take on a team then, and the Toad Sage had only gotten Minato-kouhai and Inoichi-kun's team four months ago once Tsunade-hime had kicked him off the front lines near the end of their final year. Wasn't he supposed to have wandered around for a year or so to teach the boy that became Pain, some other boy, and Konan? Was that last year or was it still supposed to happen yet?

Reigning in her badly wandering thoughts, a habit she really had to kick since it would probably get her killed eventually, Natsumi finally found her two blond friends.

The situation was so odd, though, she reflexively dropped back into ANBU protocols and simply watched it unfold. She thought her kouhai _hated_ his fan girls' clinging to him.

(ooo000ooo)

Keiko-san gasped for breath, holding firm to Minato's clothing. "J-just came from… _Uzumaki!_"

That one word had both boys freezing in place in the act of trying to pry their female teammate from the shorter blond's person. Inoichi blinked blankly at her, but Minato went still and calm, almost to a freighting degree. "What about her, Keiko-san?"

As the story of being in place to hear of the fuuinjutsu specialist's kidnapping came out, stuttered between gasping breaths, the mini Yondaime seemed to turn to ice even as the mind walker's jaw dropped lower.

"Inoichi!" Minato _barked_, making his best friend jump a foot in the air. "Find Jiraiya-sensei and tell him what's going on. I'm going after Kushina." He all but tore himself free of Keiko's hold and sprinted away before the Yamanaka could comment or protest.

He had sort of taken full command of their small clique after so long spent managing the airs of the clan heirs against the unruly edges of the orphans and lesser clan kids that the idea of him not being responsible for the well-being and manners of the group members didn't even occur to him. Minato was too used to the academy instructors making small comments against the manners of the others, the chuunin instructors fully expecting him to manage the whole group all through the three years he spent there even though he relied a lot on his sempai's coaching in handling the meshing of different personalities into a cohesive group, when she wasn't the one causing problems in the first place, to work through a lot of it. He ran for the village's main gates like the hounds of hell themselves were on his heels, the only thought going through his head was that he needed to get Kushina-san back or Mikoto-chan would never forgive him, and for that matter neither would Fugaku-san on his betrothed's behalf.

"I'll watch his back, Inoichi." The familiar voice had the shocked two left in the clearing twisting around only to face a masked visage of a very short AnBu agent. But the eyes behind the black and white mask were two different colors, making the girl splutter in shock and the mind walker nod firmly even as he paled to see Natsumi-chan decked out as one of the AnBu he only saw when there was some kind of trouble in the village. "Jiraiya-sama was in the Hokage's office half an hour ago." She threw the backpack she had at the Yamanaka's feet, after stuffing the clothing she had worn over her white armor into it and after snagging the tanto and a brace of senbon, before taking off after her future Hokage.

Inoichi swept it up, still pale from both the news and the girl-woman's reappearance, and took off for the Hokage's Tower nearly in the opposite direction.

Keiko-san was left blinking at the abruptly empty training grounds. "… what?"

(ooo000ooo)

"So… " The voice almost had Minato tripping over his own feet, as it was he barely managed to keep upright as his no longer missing sempai's voice reached him. "Kidnappings… fun. Do you know who took her?"

He risked a sideways look at the familiar figure of a short ANBU running at his back and almost wilted in relief. Natsumi-sempai never was without an answer in the academy, and the younger shinobi didn't see her being without one even if they weren't academy students anymore. She currently had her AnBu mask pushed up so he could identify her, swiftly yanking it down again when he nodded in acknowledgement of her identity. "Not really." He was a little worried the older girl would take offense to the short sentence, but he was running and wanted to keep his breath for more running.

"Well, there are three ways out of the village that I know of. Four, if you count the one that leads through Training Ground Forty-Four." And how unfair was that, when the misplaced soldier had the breath to keep up with a full conversation when he didn't? Though, he could hear the hitch in her breath under that mono-toned AnBu's voice that told him she was expanding stamina just talking him down from the initial panic. "We can rule that one out, no one's that stupid to risk a place known as the _Forest of Death_ with a hostage hampering them and AnBu patrolling the way. The main gates are a possibility, but way too showy with the full teams of chuunin and AnBu guards stationed there. Then there's the jounin gate and the merchant's gate." The AnBu paused and hummed a little as they finally got to the main roads and could roof hop. "I'd rule out the jounin gate, though. It has almost as many checks as the main. The merchant gate is most likely, given that passes are issued only to civilians and I've done an infiltration in Kumo by exploiting that kind of flaw."

Minato wordless changed course, giving the girl-woman just behind him a dirty look for the mention of a non D-ranked mission.

"Hey, you want more exciting missions faster than you've gotten? Should have gone AnBu."

The future Yondaime gritted his teeth and kept running. There wasn't much one could say to that, and his sempai had paid through the nose for that decision.

She kept silent after that, though Minato had been halfway expecting a snort for his own silence or some breathless quip with his sempai at his back. The lack of horrible jokes or anecdotes had the blond slightly worried for his older female friend since she hadn't been that quiet the last time he saw her. She had been entrenched more and more with AnBu over the last few months, true, withdrawing from them and instead of being his slightly cracked Natsumi-sempai became one of the shadowy figures used to scare civilian children. Her latest mission had even overrun by a week and a half if the armor that she hadn't had the time to return was anything to go by. A lot could happen in a week, as the orphan fully knew. And she had to be low on chakra or something, because jumps that just took him but a moment took her two after finding something to give her a leg up.

He had to wonder if her disassociation with reality was popping its ugly head up again, or if a teammate had been killed and she was suffering from a renewal of her survivor's guilt. Natsumi-sempai's brand of nuttiness was almost hard to take, especially when she swung around to doubting their existence after something didn't mesh with the world as she had known once. It had hurt the first time, when she admitted around a campfire in the Nara compound's back yard that she was sure she was either insane or dreaming in some medically induced coma somewhere. Hearing that coming out of the mouth of a girl who had suggested putting each other down as the next of kin since they both were orphans had been jarring, because besides the apathy to the academy curriculum anyone could have seen he hadn't even suspected she thought that way.

_Back in the good old days when nuts were nuts and good friends were almost all you needed_, Minato thought to himself, feeling guilty about thinking it even in the privacy of his own head. Inoichi-kun had validated the girl's past life to the rest of them that had gathered that night, though they really should get on telling the other two girls about it. It was hard to think about telling someone else though, given how _broken_ the dual eyed, misplaced soldier had been after the mind walker had forced her to tell them about her death in her last life.

And oh, was _that_ a day he would never be able to forget anytime soon.

But she was still behind him even with whatever was wrong going on, giving sorely needed operational backup in a time when he didn't have the time to explain more than the basics and he couldn't see the now chuunin Uchiha Fugaku-san or Hyuuga twins doing that without a lot of convincing. Inoichi-kun and Shikaku-kun maybe, Akimichi Chouza-kun probably, and Mikoto-chan would have ran him over, but that would be only if they knew the full circumstances beforehand.

The touch of Natsumi-sempai's hand on his shoulder drew him out of his thoughts, the alarmed sort of expressions the guards of the merchant gate wore catching his eye. How the girl-woman knew he had been lost in his own thoughts was shoved to the back of his head along with the rest of his sempai's varied issues. She was supposedly a good AnBu agent if she was still in half a year later, and that's all that mattered for the moment until they got back and he could force her into sitting down with Inoichi to fix up what had gotten broken again. Nodding to the guard, he barely slowed enough to gasp out 'kidnapping' at the guards before they let the two out. With Natsumi-sempai decked out as one of the unspoken shadow guards of the village giving the stationed AnBu guard some hand signs he couldn't understand, no one argued.

Out in the forest around Konoha was different than inside the village. While the AnBu shadow at a blond genin's back would only raise eyebrows and eventually get back to her captain, in the forest tipping their hands about the shadow guard would only tell the kidnappers how much force they could apply to get Kushina back. So Natsumi faded into the background like the shadow she had become, leaving Minato alone to panic momentarily about how he was going to find the red head, right up until the lone strand of red hair caught his eye.

(ooo000ooo)

Kushina cursed out the Kumo shinobi in her head as she wiggled the fingers of one hand, keeping herself still to minimize the damage the older one's shoulder was doing to her stomach. Gagged and bound, the girl from Uzu couldn't do much but pull out a strand of red hair from the clump in her hand and let it drift down to the ground.

Her main hope was that an Inuzuka hound or an Aburame kikachu would follow it and the others she had pulled out back to her once the news of her missing got around to Hokage-sama and Mito-sama. With the firm way the Kumo nin was holding her over one shoulder, it wouldn't do much to struggle and would possibly get her too injured to attempt an escape later on, so she was limited to leaving a trail of red strands holding a fraction of a fraction of her chakra for someone to follow.

They eventually stopped once dusk had started to set in, the two Kumo-bakas determined to take advantage of Fire Country's forests to hide them. She could have told them even she, who had not been born to this county, could tell their little dugout was obviously not animal made. But, oh yeah, gag.

With nothing to do but fume and gnaw at the strap of cloth over her mouth, she glared at the closest nin to her. They were ignoring her, and consequently missed the soft thunk of a kunai embedding itself into the ground next to her bound feet.

The Uzumaki took swift advantage even as she looked around for more and hopefully Konoha aligned ninjas hanging around, hooking the razor sharp metal over the rough rope holding her feet together. The kunai sliced through it, nicking her own leg in the process but that was ignored with the new freedom. Using her exposed toes and the flat surface of her ninja sandals, Kushina got an awkward grip on the double edged knife and bent her body enough to transfer the kunai to her hands. After that it was child's play to remove the rest of her bindings and slink into the shadows of the forest before the Kumo-nin realized the Uzumaki girl had gotten free.

Two clearings over and almost to the main highway into Konoha, she ran almost bodily into a pale Namikaze Minato. The boy didn't even wait for her to apologize for nearly hitting him, but started to drag her back to where the village lay.

"What the _hell_ are you doing here, Namikaze?" The red head hissed at him as she tried to free her arm.

"Shush. They're not too far away, Kushina-san."

Gaping at the terse reply, the future jinchuuriki stopped struggling. Minato-san moved swiftly now that she had ceased resisting him, almost self-assured and totally different from the polite but quiet boy she had known back at the academy. "Did… did you come after me?"

Namikaze blinked back at her, confused. "Of course I did. Why wouldn't I?"

Kushina went as red as her hair at his lost expression. "Not every girl dreams of being rescued, Namikaze! I'm doing fine rescuing myself, thanks."

So intent on the boy in front of her, she didn't sense the Kumo shinobi charging her back. Minato did, and swept Kushina against him with one arm and spun them around a thick tree to evade the grasping teen's reach. The fuuinjutsu princess had only a moment to take in the full view of the Kumo-nin before a black and white blur came down on his lower back with a sickening crack. A short AnBu with a half black cat's mask had just driven his knee into the ninja's spine, probably breaking it.

Minato winced as the AnBu knocked the ninja out before the ninja on the ground could do more than choke on the escaping air from his lungs. "Did you have to do that, Natsumi-sempai?"

The red head gaped. Natsumi-chan with the two colored ghost eyes had just broken someone's _spine_? The odd kunoichi that gave her and Mikoto boy advice in her second year in the academy and kept her company through the third? Then the girl blinked and took in the reality of the situation. _Natsumi made it into AnBu_. Of course she broke the spine of a kidnapper of a fellow Konoha shinobi. It was regulation to hamper the escape of prisoners, though probably not in such a final manner. It also explained why she had only shown up after graduation a few times to see her if she had been pulled into AnBu instead of getting a genin team like everyone else had.

The AnBu girl-woman gave her kouhai a short gesture that he didn't get, if his huff told her right. Natsumi then turned back to the two of them, inclining her masked face to a wide-eyed Kushina in greeting before making the standard Konoha hand signs for 'second target', 'inbound', and 'remain' before melting into the shadows of the forest again, seeking out the other threat to her future Hokage and his not-yet-wife.

Minato kept quiet, but also kept a hold on her, letting Kushina think about all she had learned in the short few minutes. Namikaze had come after her with only one AnBu as back up, probably as soon as he heard about her. His AnBu shadow probably followed the blond boy while either on duty or on her way home, but that she attributed to mostly luck.

Mesuji Natsumi she could understand, the girl had helped her immensely with the aftermath of her home country's destruction by being there and apparently kept up with her fuuinjutsu study even with her free time severely curtailed by AnBu's shadowy work just so she could discuss sealing with her on the rare occasions they met up since graduation. The dual eyed girl was just quietly helpful like that when not cracking awful jokes. Though, there hadn't been many of those in the past few months and she now felt foolish for assuming it had to do with the war and not something affecting the girl herself.

Namikaze Minato on the other hand, wasn't looking at her like the dopy eyed boys that tried to gain her affections before she hit on a working method to keep them away. He was peering in the direction the Kumo-nin had appeared from, trying to pick out the form of the other shinobi before he could spot them. Intent on keeping her from harm, even if she had protested it. The boy was their year's Rookie of the Year, but she hadn't thought much of him at the time of Mito-sama pulling her out of class. The blond never wanted to spar with her, and spent most of his time in the academy keeping the peace between the clan heirs. But this boy was different that that easygoing kid.

The rustle of the leaves around them jarred both of them, but Minato only relaxed when the white haired form of his sensei dropped to the ground next to the paralyzed Kumo ninja along with a few of his sempai's presumably fellow AnBu. The sannin grimaced at the broken teen, casting a glance to where they were against a tree before waving the AnBu off to where the Kumo shinobi had come from and where the woman in an girl's body had disappeared to. "You two okay, gaki?"

Minato nodded and finally released her. Kushina timidly smiled up at the Toad Sage. Crouched though he was, the older shinobi was still taller than them and a welcome sight.

"Natsumi-sempai's not going to get in trouble for this, is she?" The blond asked with a beseeching look to his sensei.

The red head blinked in shock as her smile fell into a worried frown. Right, Natsumi was AnBu. No one was supposed to know that but her fellow AnBu members. She was probably in a lot of trouble for letting herself be identified behind her mask by a pair of genin even if it was during a rescue of a kidnapping victim.

"That little neko's lucky I've decided to take her on in Keiko-san's place. I'll keep her out of most of it, Minato-kun." The white haired man glanced back down at the figure laying at his feet. "Was she always so protective, or is this something new?"

"It developed in our second year at the academy and didn't really get any better since." The lone Namikaze alive admitted sheepishly as he rubbed the back of his head, probably thinking about how much worse her protective urges would had gotten under AnBu. "And… really?"

"Objections?" Jiraiya drawled, looking at how close the two of them were even with the threats dealt with.

Kushina blushed and hurriedly took a few steps to the side.

"Not from me, sensei." Minato grinned, completely oblivious to the older ninja's suggestive look and happy with how his sempai would be added to his genin team. He and Inoichi could keep the girl-woman in the here and now easier if she was with them.

If it would keep the other kunoichi from being in trouble for backing up Namikaze and coming out for her, the red head was all for it. Though it was kinda annoying how the older girl made the blond boy light up.

"Scram then, the both of you. Once you get to the gates, you'll be escorted to the Hokage's Tower to wait for my return." The Toad Sage surged upright and took off after the ANBU squad he brought with him.

A tug on her sleeve got Kushina moving back to the main road to Konoha, still reeling from the day's events. A muffled cough brought her attention back to the boy walking next to her.

"These are yours." Minato placed a carefully bundled bunch of red strands into her hand, shoving his own into his pockets and looking away. "I've always admired your hair."

(ooo000ooo)

Natsumi winced when a heavy hand impacted the back of her skull in a slap delivered upside her head when she landed on a branch. She glared at the white haired sannin through her mask, but kept quiet as she and the older man fell back from the hunting ANBU squad she had led there chasing the lone Kumo-nin back to whatever transportation the two of them had arranged for Kushina-chan.

The sannin flicked his fingers in standard ANBU sign language as they retreated to Konoha, telling her of what Inoichi did after reaching him and the official story she was to stick to about the kidnapping. He also passed her back the pack she had stored most of her physical possessions in, speeding up a bit to let her sort herself out again as Natsumi and not Panther.

"So how much trouble am I in? Erm… sensei?" She asked as she reached the man's side again decked out like any ninja of the Genin Corps in kunoichi green.

"You're lucky I like troublemakers, neko-chan." Jiraiya grinned broadly at the girl's twitching blue eye. It was a bit unnerving to see two differently colored pale eyes in her face, but from what Sakumo had told him about her before it was confirmed that AnBu agent Panther was after the kidnappers of Uzumaki, she had contacts that would cover that up during undercover missions. He sobered up a bit, and her expression smoothed out to match his serious look. "It would have been worse if you had wanted to remain an active AnBu assassin. I'll sell your transference to my team as punishment to most of the shinobi ranks, but unofficially you're being sentenced to sitting on your fellow gakis for taking off like you did and only telling Inoichi-kun. Probably for a few _years_ for this stunt."

Natsumi shrugged, kicking a few stones embedded into the forest path they were on as she accepted that. Forced retirement for reckless behavior wasn't a bad sentence. It would sting anyone's shinobi pride but it would only mean some time and at least a few recommendations from her superiors before she would see any AnBu work now. "Aa, I still would have done it again."

"Which is why I'll make sure you're only getting a slap on the wrist for this and not being brought up on charges of dereliction of duty for not reporting it to anyone else before following my _other_ blond gaki." The Toad Sage sighed mostly to himself, firmly reminding his brain that AnBu or not, Mesuji Natsumi was still an orphaned genin kunoichi now under his care _not_ a mini adult in charge of her own affairs. "I'm supposed to be lecturing you about the proper chain of command and all that formal stuff you probably know backward and forwards already, so you'll act all properly contrite when we get back to the village. And in the meantime, tell me what kind of worries you're little friends harbor about your head, hmm?"

"I'm a little surprised they haven't told you themselves yet." The assassin strolling along the forest paths with him admitted after a quiet moment. "I'll let Inoichi-kun tell you, he's better at explaining it than me. Something to do with severe disassociation with whatever and a few other things I don't listen to in defense of my poor sanity. He's most likely going to make me his little pet project now that I've got the time."

Jiraiya accepted that for the moment, they were out in the open instead of somewhere that could be monitored for eavesdroppers. He would get his answers, from either his students or the Yamanaka clan itself eventually. "Moving on then, why AnBu?"

"Inoichi-kun said pick a goal to focus on during my therapy sessions, and that was it."

He gave her a sharp look for tying that question back to his original one, but let it go. She wouldn't be able to wiggle out of all of his questions, and damn it all if he walked back to the village in silence like the girl was probably used to. Running after two thirds of his team had bothered the hell out of his injuries and he wasn't a quiet kind of guy in the first place. "The jutsu you developed?"

She flushed, snatching Jiraiya's waning attention. "That was a mistake. Well, not the developing it into a weapon bit, but when I stumbled into it. The Hawk Eye technique is only supposed to simply increase visual pickup, but I screwed up and overdid it then _overcorrected_ before the spar in low light with Wolf-err, Hatake-um … _taicho,_ and casted it on him instead of me." Natsumi covered her eyes and gained a bit of color, recalling the incident with some embarrassment. "I made him run into a wall, and cracked his mask."

The last bit was nearly mumbled into her hands and the Toad Sage grinned broadly. Blackmail! "A wall?"

The girl hunched into herself, shoving her hands into her pockets like another of his gakis did when he did something embarrassing. "Then there was Jackal and the light pole, and I got Monkey with it once when I was working out the kinks. He almost took out a window in… well, it was dark and we only passed through that tiny collection of huts. Monkey's a _dick_ anyways. I got Lizard and Crow together after an incident with the showers, Tiger when the ass tried to trap my bunk. After that, taicho figured out it was me behind the rash of 'bad luck' in our sector of the division and they stopped hazing me. I only used it against targets after that."

The sannin snickered, then started laughing as he imagined his friend running into a wall and a stuck up AnBu sabotage specialist tripping through a window. He really hoped whatever was wrong with Natsumi wasn't anything major, it would be a pity to sentence the girl to the mental ward of the hospital if that was the kind of thing she thought up in self-defense.

\V/

After the worst of the hubbub over Kushina's kidnapping was over, Jiraiya dragged his newly configured team plus one to his empty apartment, since it was past midnight and Mito-sama and the Yamanaka clan head agreed to it for the night, and dumped his kids and the add on onto the floor of his barren living room. "Tea, anyone?" He wanted something a bit stronger, since he had to drop Keiko's new circumstances on her at the Tower, but he didn't think that would go over well with his impressionable gakis.

Watching them pull themselves out of the puppy pile always made him smile, especially when Minato went beet red when he grabbed a part of the red head's anatomy he shouldn't have by accident. The retribution was also vastly amusing to watch, and finally they all agreed, in the case of one cringing blond in a higher pitched voice than normal, to tea.

Natsumi merely smiled at him as he passed her a steaming cup of green tea, but the blond boys were nervous and the red head clueless about what was supposed to be going on.

Inoichi looked so scared that the sannin highly doubted he would say anything, though from the direction he kept looking in it wasn't him the mind walker was concerned with. Mesuji apparently thought so too, so she started for him.

"Do you believe in reincarnation?"

(ooo000ooo)

Three arguments about life after death, two complete foreign languages written out, one visit from a very ancient and shocked toad to read said languages, another argument of letting the Yamanaka clan heir back into an AnBu field agent's head however removed she was from her previous line of work, and one sealing array jointly worked out by four fuuinjutsu users later, Jiraiya would grudgingly admit that it might be possible. It helped that the seal array was playing out Mesuji's past death for him after a short summery of her previous life's technology after Inoichi's bid to get back in the reincarnated girl's head sparked an idea in Kushina's.

The older man ran his hands over his face, glaring at the early morning sun now peeking out of his unreasonably large windows. Probably one of the reasons he preferred hotel rooms even in Konoha. "So, why the hell didn't you go to T&I with this?"

"Jiraiya-sensei, it took all night to convince you we weren't lying." The dual eyed girl-who-was-really-a-woman pointed out dryly, inwardly very thankful she had never gotten through to the Hokage if this was how all older shinobi would react to her past circumstances. "How likely do you think a chance to convince someone in Intelligence that I wasn't crazy with a story like this?"

The other kunoichi grunted from her slumped position on the newly retired AnBu's shoulder, slipping back to sleep when nothing further drew her out of it. Inoichi was as out of it as the red head, flat out on his back with what little worldly possessions Natsumi had to her name for the moment under his head. Only Minato remained upright with the two of them, but he was flagging just as fast as them now that everything was settling down.

The sannin took another look at the scroll playing out the blood spattered desert scene again. Half of the seal was his, a third was Kushina's, and the rest was cobbled together with Minato's skills at decrypting his sempai's words and Natsumi's memories. It really did explain much of the girl that was a little off, if it was true. The Toad Sage closed his eyes, defeat squeezing through with the thought. As much as he didn't really want to believe it, he had no choice for the moment to at least take the explanation as is. Overlooking the obvious was practically a cardinal sin in their profession, after all. He made a mental note to burn the scroll before he passed out cold, since he knew the mangled, hodgepodge seal now anyways.

Pa had understood the written language the ex-AnBu had handed over, remarking before dismissing himself that he hadn't seen the like since his own tadpole days. That was the most damning evidence the sannin had seen or heard all night. If even his summons believed the girl, then he really had to accept that his new kunoichi student was actually older than him by two decades, all years of her lives total. Kushina hadn't had much of a problem past Minato confirming that the girl wasn't bat shit insane, and the three genin and one ex-AnBu assassin had then turned their attention to convincing him.

And if he found himself in the same position as she did, who wouldn't say he would have the same initial conclusions as her? Insane or delusional, with the additional question if a delusion called you sane, were you?

And most of all, the majority of his questions found themselves answered if he judiciously took in that reincarnation was actually possible.

"Alright gakis, bed. We'll continue this later." Or never. He really wanted that drink about now.

\V/

Jiraiya probably saw more of the future clan heads than he wanted to over the week following the Uzumaki kidnapping attempt, but Minato wasn't as concerned about that as he thought he should be. With Natsumi back in the village indefinitely, he could make Inoichi keep an eye on her recovery from the AnBu mindset even if their sensei told them they couldn't ask about her stint in the black ops division, on the grounds of keeping village secrets. They could catch up with the others more easily with the official end of the Second Great Shinobi War not too long after the misplaced soldier's return to the village. With the stunt Kumo pulled at the end Hokage-sama all but neutered them for a good while, and with rumors of Kiri turning in on itself from suddenly silent borders it left Iwa and Ame the only real threats to Konoha's strength since Suna remained firmly on their side of conflicts.

A group spar with all the skills they had learned in the war probably wouldn't do much for his sensei's blood pressure, but it had been too long since they had held one with everyone there. Not that everyone was participating, but with Chouza refereeing as usual and Shikaku napping in the shade to critique the spar later it was just like they never left the academy but better, with Jiraiya, Mikoto, and Kushina there instead of off on their own.

"Alright!" The Akimichi heir boomed out, ignoring the crack in his voice. "Nothing lethal, _Natsumi-chan_. Nothing to do with kekkai genkais, _Uchihas and Hyuugas_. _NO ninjutsus!_ Taijutsu and genjutsu only!" Giving a slightly more effective admonishing glare at the combatants than he was able to during their academy years, Chouza dropped his hand to signal the start of the general melee and got the hell out of the way. If they hadn't listened to the rules before this, it was highly unlikely any of them would follow them now.

Like they had never stopped sparring with each other every day during the war, his sempai darted to Minato's side and they took on the Hyuuga twins as Inoichi turned on the Uchiha heir with Mikoto's and Kushina's help, Jiraiya's laughter echoing in the background of training ground three as they divided and conquered the stuck up clan kids.

It was always more fun when his sempai had the time to cheat for them. Or, as she maintained; if you weren't cheating to begin with you weren't trying hard enough.

(ooo000ooo)

Fugaku was nearly cross-eyed by the time Jiraiya got him to stop running into the trees with the Nara's help, but Natsumi was not helping matters by failing to contain her giggles. The other Uchiha had more sense, Mikoto was leaning on gleeful Kushina as she waited for the nausea to pass.

Apparently, _Hyuugas_ with their bloodline active were immune to the modified genjutsu the ex-AnBu had developed for her assassinations, but not _Uchihas_ with their kekkai genkai active. Natsumi had set the sort-of genjutsu of hers on all four clan members with eye based bloodlines before the spar had started, and when both Mikoto and Fugaku disregarded Chouza's warning against the sharingan they caused a large number of major mistakes in the Uchihas' three on one spar. The Hyuuga twins lasted longer once they started using their bloodline when they caught sight of the crimson flash of the Uchihas' sharingan, and escaped the worst of the consequences of the soon to be labeled _AnBu assassination technique_, but only because the separation between the orphans had caused a fair few number of differences between Minato's developing academy style and Natsumi's brutal AnBu styled taijutsu. Both Hizashi and Hiashi admitted to Shikaku in letting their taijutsu go in favor of expanding the range on their byakugan for tracking missions, something they intended to address before their next spar.

Jiraiya was managing his amusement at the Uchihas' discomfort better than his kunoichi with the odd circumstances, though he made a note to polish the girl-woman's taijutsu up once everything settled down. He wasn't giggling like little neko-chan as he wanted too, but the broad grin had yet to leave his face. "It would make sense that the byakugan is immune, since it simply sees through a lot. There isn't enough it can't to be affected. A sharingan just does what your little jutsu does naturally, so it increases the effects."

After the Uchihas' went down disorientated to the point of turning green, Inoichi and Kushina tested each other then started up seriously when it became apparent that neither Uchihas could continue. By the time the orphans took out the Hyuuga twins with a mix of standard AnBu sabotage tricks and Minato's speedy reflexes, the red head had been ready and waiting for them.

Kushina had almost lost, but she pulled out a win against the two orphans suffering the effects of the Hyuugas' Gentle Fist style of taijutsu in the end. Now there was another set of rules the Akimichi heir needed to announce before any spar. No AnBu assassination techniques, and absolutely _no fuuinjutsu_.

"I could have told you that." Shikaku drawled lazily from the shade, stretching out like a cat. Now that he knew what was going on, the genius had retreated to his previous position after freezing the Uchiha heir in place so Jiraiya could fetch him before Fugaku lost too many brain cells. It won him a lot of points with the Toad Sage. "It also won't work on an Aburame, they'll trust their kikachu over their own eyes, and those that can fight blind."

"You're not going to add Inuzukas to that?" The sannin asked lightly of the shadow master in training as he watched the newest member to his genin team reverse what she had done to the Uchiha's prized heir so he would be able to at least see straight.

"They still use sight to identify obstacles, but you couldn't use that against one to make them turn on their ninkin. Their sense of smell would keep that from happening, but it would still confuse the hell out of them even so."

The Toad Sage hummed lightly, silently agreeing with Sakumo that the girl-woman used her weird purple taint to her chakra for the jutsu and making another mental note to find out _what_ the hell it was with Pa and Ma's help. What the Nara heir concluded wasn't much of a flaw in the technique, given the likelihood of Natsumi fighting Hyuuga or Aburame clan members in a life or death situation, or anything remotely approaching the damn near all-seeing shinobi clan or _bug_ wielding ninjas. The blind fighting might throw a bit of a monkey wrench into things, but that was so difficult to grasp and use in shinobi encounters that the chance of it was small. The only real trouble the girl sized ex-AnBu would have with assassinations then in a few years were those who also relied on another sense to help them separate fact from fiction or possibly those with hypersensitivity to their own chakra networks.

"Well, this is cozy." The light tone of his female teammate snapped the sannin back to the situation at hand. Tsunade and Orochimaru had finally dragged themselves back to the village again and had sought the last member of their team out. The Snake Summoner was inspecting the remains of a tree that fell prey to Kushina's over the top explosive tag, and the Slug Princess was looking over the survivors of the spar and their collections of injuries with an arched eyebrow.

Even genin ranked ninjas' and ex-AnBu's needed warning labels, apparently. These brats were vicious.

Tsunade swiped a glowing green hand over the Uchihas' foreheads, then turned to deal with Inoichi's twisted ankle and still gushing broken nose with the same efficiency Jiraiya had seen on the frontlines. "Nasty genjutsu work. Who's was it?"

Natsumi just blinked up at the busty blonde woman, until a sharp elbow courtesy of one of the limping Hyuuga twins prodded her forward. "Mine, Tsunade-sama."

"Who did you develop it under, girl?" Sharp gold eyes took in the waif like appearance of the ex-AnBu assassin holding onto her probably sprained or cracked ribs, already thinking of a diet to put something on the dual eyed girl's bones other than her own skin.

"Sakumo-taicho's." Natsumi promptly replied with only a minor amount of wheezing, having already decided on the proper manner of address for her old AnBu captain who had the habit of checking up on her while her old squad was waiting on her permanent replacement.

Tsunade then turned on him and the Toad Sage waved his hands to stall the lecture he already could see coming as she switched gakis to deal with Minato's mild concussion. "I got her last week, hime."

"She needs to eat more." The Slug Princess scowled darkly at him then frowned at Natsumi, who kept blinking her ghost eyes back up at the blonde innocently. Jiraiya wasn't fooled, he knew that the girl-woman knew that just as well but AnBu field rations were not the healthiest thing out there and that was probably the only thing she had been eating prior to the war's end. Six months on a diet of basically protein energy bars and the occasional rabbit would be difficult with an adult's body size and weight, on Natsumi's it probably just added insult to the injury of being orphan thin to begin with. "And what the hell was she doing before if you only got an academy graduate last week?"

"Playing hide and seek." Neko-chan answered readily, forestalling the fiction Jiraiya had been about to give about KIA teammates and horrible brats. Well, it was sort of true, and he was sure the majority of the kids there _knew_ without anyone saying what the girl-woman had been doing prior to showing back up with him. Hard to believe that the Uchiha and Hyuuga brats weren't somewhat upset with it, but he had caught them giving the stick figure of the assassin an alarmed look recently, and figured they didn't want to pay that price for something they wouldn't be able to brag about to each other.

But Tsunade easily saw right through that, leaving the white haired man's male students to grab the female's arm and run a medical diagnostic without hand signs. She was too good of a ninja to show surprise, but Jiraiya could see her lips tightening in the corners when the woman got to the ex-AnBu's chakra etched tattoo on the back of her left elbow.

"Perfect. You go _anywhere_ without some kind of snack on you while you're still under a hundred pounds, I'll hunt you down and _force_ the nastiest herbal concoction I have for weight gain down your throat."

Natsumi_ beamed_ at that, and the Toad Sage could only shrug at Orochimaru's own raised eyebrow over the forest of short heads standing around. A retired AnBu assassin who started at age eleven, stood to reason she wasn't all there anymore if she wasn't all there to begin with.

\V/

Senju Tsunade wasn't a butch woman, really. She was too much of a kunoichi for that to be true, still able to lead a man around by the balls in the traditional role of a female shinobi. Although, she probably would crush them with an 'unfortunate' muscle spasm at the same time. But she had the same hard-ass core to her Natsumi knew from lifelong female soldiers in her previous life. Added to the fact the medical genius was one of the more effective kunoichis the dual eyed girl had ever seen or heard, gave life to a minor amount of hero worship.

Totally ignorable.

The fact the Slug Princess had no problem punching the Toad Sage through a wall or two when he got perverted on them the last two weeks since the sparring incident was just icing on that cake.

Really.

But Tsunade didn't know about the possibility of reincarnation or bloody desert nights or shadow laced assassinations, though she probably suspected the latter, and that made her safe in the way Jiraiya, her kouhai, and now even Kushina were not. So Natsumi tagged along after her still new sensei's teammate more and more often when she was at a loss to do during her free time when the man said no more training and she didn't want to be with the teenagers of her own physical years, so she was treated to the totally bemusing prospect of being dealt with like the underweight teenager she _looked_ like.

She even met Senju Nawaki. For someone Naruto supposedly acted much like, he was small and snotty. Probably because the kid was still in his toddler years.

Apparently, Tsunade's parents had died in the field not too long after her brother's birth, and she was availing herself on the Sarutobi clan's offer of help in caring for him while she had been fighting the war and Mito-sama was occupied with 'other things'.

And there was some kind of emergency that day, so the ex-AnBu found herself tasked with a comparable D-ranked mission on her lonesome. And an armful of toddler.

Nawaki was chewing on her sleeve instead of his rubber kunai, drooling all over it and giggling in that addictive way of the young almost babies, and Natsumi finally got around to thinking through the turns in her recent life as she let the toddler soak her shirt in spit.

_Panther_ the AnBu assassin didn't have a past, any kind of future, no age group to deal with, skills only useful in killing people, and no friends aside of the squad mates she respected at most and a captain she would follow into hell at worst. It was a lot easier to be Panther than Natsumi. AnBu was just _there_, more wraith than human, impersonal and probably as nutty as she was without the past life screwing them up. But that was an addiction she wasn't sure she would ever get over, to disappear into AnBu without a backward glance. She could now somewhat understand what a fourteen year old Kakashi had felt when he joined up after his sensei's death, the complete desire to forget you knew what it was like to come to terms with losing everything that mattered and the mechanical obedience of the truly emotionally numb. If Minato-kun hadn't grabbed her with both hands and dragged her along after him when he thought they were both eight, giving her something to concentrate on besides the guilt of leading a platoon of soldiers to their death, she was sure that any attempt to remove her from the ranks of the assassins would not have gone over well with her.

_Natsumi_ had friends, a very twisted kind of past life, knew some of the future without her in it, an overly difficult chakra network, and was way too young. She had the temptation to join the unborn Hatake in burying her head in the sand, but she just couldn't do it if the kidnapping of Kushina-hime was any measure of her standing back and watching events work out on their own. She had thrown away the chance to continue working for AnBu occasionally on the _possibility_ of a threat to one of her friends, one she _knew_ would have worked out okay without her. Then there was the niggling idea that she didn't have to lose everything again battling against the stubborn thought that none of it was real anyways so why did it matter if she lost them?

There was a whole lot of possibility in her new circumstances. Hatake Sakumo had been her AnBu _captain_, and once AnBu always AnBu. Retired or not. He would be her kenjutsu master as well, given a few years. Jiraiya had snatched her out of the shadow guard to assuage his curiosity and to replace an ineffective member of his cell, which made him her sensei too. There was a lot she could do with that, keeping her kouhai alive, Jiraiya informed of Naruto's home life if that wasn't possible, and stopping her taicho's guilt ridden suicide before it had a chance to happen and scar his five year old genius of a son.

If this was a dream or delusion there really wasn't a harm in trying to change things, but it was the fraction of an idea that this was real Inoichi implanted in her head that held her in place in terror of messing something up. Naruto had been so lucky in his life, not with how he had been hated in his childhood but the sort of slowly escalating opponents that he matched wits with. The blond jinchuuriki had also fulfilled the promise of his birth as foretold by the Toad Summons, uniting the five great shinobi nations and countless smaller ones in a continent wide battle against Uchiha Madara. If she kept someone alive that had been dead without her interference, would that change and protect him or would the littlest gaki die before he had a chance to be what he was supposed to be?

Blowing out a breath and removing her _still_ way too long hair from the toddler's grasp, Natsumi weighed the possibility of her screwing everything up against the worth of her friends' lives and happiness. Unsurprisingly, her friends won out hands down. She would have to grit her teeth and ignore that stabbing fear in her gut about Naruto's future circumstances.

So she needed a plan to keep that silent promise she made to her future Hokage back in the academy. And a very, _very_ good one if what she dimly recalled was going to be of any use.

One, she had to stop avoiding her friends. Minato was starting to get suspicious of how long she spent following the Slug Princess around, especially since she would never have enough control for a few _years_ yet, working on it extensively to the exclusion of everything else, over her obstinate chakra system to use any iryou-nin jutsus. Even Inoichi was starting to ask what she was doing while training with Jiraiya, and the Toad Sage himself when the team was doing the completely inane D-ranks to build up a mission record for the team. She didn't want to hurt them with her avoidance, but she couldn't really _think_ when they were so hypersensitive of any mental backsliding she might do in 'progressing forward' and she hadn't been able to think pass the mission they were on while in AnBu, leaving a lot of things to catch up on.

Two, she had to at least pass a brief mental health check so the Yamanaka clan heir would feel alright with letting her out of his sight for at least a week, even if she was excused from the genin mandatory ones since she went AnBu for half a year. Bullshitting 101, since there really wasn't any _other_ hope for her.

Three, Namikaze Minato needed to survive. If she was going to do this, she wanted to do it _right_. October tenth, the year after the end of the Third Great Shinobi War, was one of the dates that loomed over her head, knowing as she did the postulated death date of her favorite little gaki and the love of his life. With her kouhai was his wife, Uzumaki Kushina. In keeping with the happiness of the closest thing to a little brother she had, she was one hell of a hot blooded lynch pin. She didn't know what kind of couple the two of them made, but looked forward to finding out with a kind of breathless anticipation that confused her some days.

Four, the Uchihas had to remain part of the village and not, you know, dead. Selfish of her, but it was a good back-up plan to catch or bandage anything that went wrong after hopefully keeping her Hokage alive, or taking care of baby Naruto if she couldn't. If she didn't let Fugaku get too wrapped up in clan politics, probably by badgering him to handing a lot of it over to Mikoto since she was indefinitely better at it than him even at this age, the teenaged boy she was familiar with now would make a good shinobi clan head if not a politician. Without an unbending line in the sand in regards to Danzo's meddling, the Uchihas wouldn't lose so much ground in the village in the eyes of the shinobi ranks. Keeping Itachi company might keep the kid from having to choose to kill his entire clan or his brother, since she would be a pipe to the Hokage, hopefully her kouhai, and an Namikaze linked influence on the Uchiha heir Danzo wouldn't like. The arrogance in the Uchihas were apparently limited to the main line of the clan and most of the Military Police, the lesser branches and civilians of that noble clan were a hell of a lot easier to get along with even if they rarely got out of that massive compound of theirs'. She would know, since after that general melee Fugaku had, very politely, asked to work out a method of countering her not-genjutsu with Mikoto and the gobsmacked look on his face when she cheerfully agreed went a long way to convincing her the Uchihas were already closing ranks a little. Not to mention the frequent interruptions by varied clan elders that popped up occasionally to watch them work on the AnBu assassination technique she was credited with, she was sure they were looking over her shoulder and ensuring she was really working on it with the clan heir and his intended.

And five, there was a very long list of people she had to save or salvage to make a large enough impact on the future in any direction. That was the worst part as far as she was concerned, because the idea that saving someone now would displace some of the key people as she knew them in an incident later where they were one of the reasons her precious people survived was _nightmare_ inducing. Who could she save and who could _Konoha_ afford to lose? Ideally, she wanted to save everyone that meant something to her and her kouhai, but she only knew of the first incidents that lead to their death. If something happened _after_ that point, she would be in the dark as anyone else about it, and what good they might have done then would be moot to what kind of damage a worse death would do to them and the people around them. The occupation she was in now had a very low life expectancy, around sixteen years was the average lifespan of a shinobi factoring in the war that just ended, and there was no telling how a lot of the shinobi she would attempt to influence would jump after a certain point.

She had though over all the ways to pull lynch pins and foul secondary plans up ever since she was five, and she had a good idea of what to do with the Intel she had now. But if she learned anything in the short stint in AnBu here and in her past life as a platoon sergeant of one of the largest militaries of the world, it was that plans never kept together in the face of the enemy and you could always have better Intel. So many things would shift and twist with the presence of one extra, including herself. If she did make a dent in her captain's life, her plans would need revaluation damn near weekly.

There probably were a lot of holes if anyone saner than her could see what she did, mostly in the ranking system she had for the value of the people around her. Natsumi didn't like delusions, and she knew she would cheerfully murder _anyone_ that threatened her life and precious people here. She had a lot of plans to kill certain threats before they became threats, but she would also need her AnBu rank back so she could move and investigate freely as a shadow guard and not a supposedly carefree genin. She would use who she could, kill who she couldn't, and guard her future Hokage's back from the machinations of an ancient Uchiha clan head and their own village elders until he had the rank and experience to do it himself.

That most likely labeled her psychotic, or at least clinically insane. Unable to connect to the world like most sane people. Uncaring of the damage she would do outside of her small circle of important people. Unconcerned for what that meant for her in the end. She had died once and would do it again, that was inescapable.

She didn't care.

_Her Hokage would survive, damn it all, and she would see it unless if her name wasn't Mesuji Natsumi now and Fiona Hanson then._

And now she had to think up a way to sell her supposed sanity to Inoichi.

Nawaki babbled in her lap and slapped her across the face, and Natsumi blinked her dual colored eyes at the half amused expression on the face of Senju Tsunade standing in the doorway watching her watch her little brother.

"Do I want to know what you were thinking about so hard over there, little shadow girl?"

\V/

Jiraiya thought that this little idea of twice a month gatherings was a good one and had plans to invite his teammates, Sakumo, and his sensei to it once everything was settled between the gakis. Kami knew they would get a few kicks out of listing to the pack of brats talk to each other.

He had been aware that this little group of genins and a few chuunins met up when they could, but the lack of the war and the drain on everyone's time made it so it was immensely easier for them to coordinate when and where outside individual meetings. Now that Natsumi had informed him to what she knew of reincarnation and life after death, he was practically considered to have always been there even though this one was his first. They were going through telling Uchiha Mikoto, apparently the last to know so far, and he felt rather impressed with the secret keeping they possessed that the two actual girls of the group hadn't known before him.

Uzumaki Kushina was missing, and so was the current topic of discussion, but the Toad Sage knew that had to do with Mito's flagging health rather than any attempt to avoid facing their peers for whatever reason. Natsumi was probably babysitting Tsunade's kid brother again, and Kushina was at the side of her one remaining relative in the village. The older Uzumaki woman would have kicked the bucket a lot sooner given the events of the past month, but the news that filtered back to her, that AnBu agent Panther had went after the younger Uzumaki using a lead about the kidnappers' direction, had done a lot to relieve the ancient and frail fuuinjutsu master from most of her worry and stress over the red head's kidnapping nearly three weeks ago. The Slug Princess' return to Konoha two weeks ago had helped immensely as well, keeping the old jinchuuriki alive long enough to tell her replacement most of what she needed to be a good one.

Mikoto accepted reincarnation faster than he did, almost like one red head everyone knew, but mostly because Fugaku didn't have a doubt about it. Then again, one didn't argue with a confident Nara without concrete facts, and sometimes not even then.

The conversation had turned to what short term plans they had after they were done assuring the Uchiha girl that Mesuji was working with the Yamanaka clan about the issues her past life was giving her when the flair of purple tainted chakra in a standard AnBu signal for off-duty and friendly let the older man sitting with his back to one of the Nara clan compounds' trees that the missing ex-AnBu assassin was back.

Natsumi strode into the clearing with an air like the cat that got the cream, swiped the canary, and blamed the whole thing on the dog. She had put on a tiny amount of weight under Tsunade's eagle eye already, and no longer looked like a stiff wind would snap her clean in two. Merely a hard knock now. "What did the fish say when he swam into a wall?"

Jiraiya's eyebrow rose incredulously, Minato's face lit up, and the rest of the gakis warily exchanged looks except for Akimichi Chouza who took the bait the assassin offered, since from what the Toad Sage had heard the boy had genuinely thought the woman in a girl's body's jokes were funny back in the academy. "What?"

"_Dam._"

Oh, that was so unfunny it hurt. Slapping a hand over his face, the white haired man groaned in acute pain. This was what he had _willingly_ signed up for taking her on?

(ooo000ooo)

Inoichi was all but squirming in place to pick apart her new outlook, and Natsumi found it hilarious. He could tell something happened to the girl-woman's world view, and he wanted to _know_.

But her kouhai eventually ruined her fun and pinned her with a serious look with blue eyes over the campfire they started in the same hollow they had used almost four years ago once dusk fell. With a sigh, the misplaced soldier smirked softly at the blond mind walker. "I've decided it doesn't matter. Real or not, delusional or not, I'll do what I believe in and damn the consequences." _And isn't that all I'm really afraid of now?_

The Yamanaka processed that for a silent moment, then started to smile. "Rationalization. I was afraid you might have slid back into disbelief again, cut off from everything as you were."

Personally, she was thinking she was still stuck on delusions, but that worked for her too. "That was more like just putting time between me and my worries, since you don't really have the space to question the meaning of life there." She admitted slowly, thinking over the large space of time she had dissected and puzzled over the shinobi around her and not herself. She couldn't afford it then. "A nice break, if you discount a lot of the hazing."

Jiraiya snorted loudly, eyeballing her. Natsumi simply shrugged uselessly back.

"Wasn't too different from what I did before. A little more up close and personal, but the familiarity of the routine was comfortable for me."

The older man didn't argue, but he didn't look like he believed her either.

"So it put you back on an even keel, so to say." The Yamanaka heir tapped a finger against his lips as he toyed with the idea. "Probably around the age you realized what had happened to you. Five? Six? That would have given you a mental age of thirty something, right?"

"I was always aware I was alive- _err_ -ish, Inoichi-kun. I sort of came back to myself around three and didn't realize exactly what it meant until five when I stopped falling asleep every three to four hours." The ex-AnBu assassin tugged her hightail, smirking faintly when Horse didn't try to stab her hand with a mildly poisoned senbon for the habit since the woman wasn't there. She really did need to cut the damn thing. "It was the first roof hopping ninja that had me worried about delusions, cause that wasn't possible when I looked around in my last life."

"Saa, so she's sane now?" Shikaku asked, cracking open an eye and looking to the mind walker for an answer rather than the girl-woman he was lying next to.

Hiashi huffed across the fire next to his twin, since apparently Hyuugas were too dignified to snort. "She was never sane to begin with." He ignored Hizashi's slight wince and Fugaku's firm nod of agreement.

"Hush…" Inoichi gave the marginally older twin the evil eye and glared momentarily at the Uchiha heir, before facing the Nara heir. "In a manner of speaking. She was always _functionally_ sane if slightly crazy, since she could keep up with day to day life without trying to murder one of us or cause herself unreasonable harm trying to keep touch with reality. Her outlook on life took a hit with the rebirth, and the insanity part she had been tripping over was more the disassociation with reality that had the edge to _go_ that way than anything really wrong in her head. Heaped on top of that was survivor's guilt. She never was truly insane, merely thought she was. Though it will take a while to stop automatically doubting herself or me about her mental state."

Natsumi stared at him for a moment, slowly blinked one blue eye then her green one as she processed that, and then _smirked_. "Aww, Inoichi-kun! I didn't know you _cared_!" She folded her hands over her heart, leaning over to place her head on his shoulder. "Sorry, though. The thirty years between us make it a little  
awkward to think about dating you." The Yamanaka heir spluttered, turning beet red. Everyone else _stared_, even her kouhai. Damn, she thought that was a good one, wasn't very perverted too. Maybe it was still a bit too soon, or maybe her sense of humor was just too different. "In keeping with the rather serious bent we have going on," the ex-AnBu ignored Shikaku's soft snort next to her, "Tsunade-sama just told me before I came out here that Mito-sama is no longer with us."

The blond mind walker slowly recovered as the group absorbed that. Fugaku was the one to look over at the girl-woman seriously and continue the conversation. "Uzu protocols, then? It's a good thing you're going to have a lot of free time now, Natsumi-san."

Mikoto looked around the quiet group. That was likely news to her and apparently the sannin sitting just outside the circle of younger shinobi. "What are Uzu protocols?"

"Who else here has lost their entire world before, Mikoto-san?" Minato asked her lowly, jerking a thumb over to the dual eyed girl-woman lounging next to the Nara heir. "Natsumi-sempai helped Kushina-chan once before when Uzu fell, and she'd do it again even without us asking her too."

Natsumi's pale cheeks flushed a bit, internally damning the habits of always assisting her past life had left stamped on her soul and manners. "It was expected of… of what I was before. American soldiers always helped out, it was some kind of stupid unwritten law of the universe then. If you needed any kind of help, you found a dog soldier, a jarhead, a sailor, or one of the chair force." And wouldn't the fly boys of her past be pissed with that nickname being the only thing they would be recalled by?

But her kouhai brightened even more than he had when she told that lame joke before, if that was possible. It was probably was the sharing of her previous life that pleased the closest thing she ever had to a little brother, painful though it was to think about. She had never done it before, finding the memories too sore to poke at. "That's an awesome idea."

"Not very practical with shinobi, you'd never be sure who was really being helpful and who was scoping a place out." Jiraiya spoke up, still carefully inspecting her. Natsumi had maybe a moment to panic over what kind of psychology skills her sensei had before the man snorted out loud and his expression relaxed. "That's why you attached yourself to Minato-kun. He _asked_."

If it had been another life, the ex-AnBu assassin would have said it was a light bulb moment.

\V/

Tsunade smiled sweetly at her pervert of a teammate as she loomed over him. "My little shadow is missing again. You're not hiding her because you let her get stick thin while peaking in on the bathhouses again, are you _Jiraiya_?"

The white haired sannin gulped and quailed a little on the inside, even if he knew he was in the clear. His female teammate was as beautiful as she was _scary_, especially in her element as she was in Konoha's major hospital. "She's over a hundred pounds!" He yelped as the evil woman flexed his knee the wrong way. He was in to get his finally healed injuries checked out to clear him for field duty again, and was mostly sure Natsumi knew he had been injured but kept it to herself. Another thing to wonder about, but one of the minor ones. Good thing the girl-woman had been ANBU once, otherwise it would have taken over six months for the team's first C-rank mission with only an injured, 'technically' jounin ranked ninja for backup if something went wrong.

Another thing that needed sorting that was giving the man a headache the size of Fire Country. Where the hell did 'sannin' fall in traditional shinobi rankings?

"Does she still look like someone could knock her out with a glancing hit?" The Slug Princess asked archly as a flair of green told the Toad Sage she was checking the fractures he had gotten in his right kneecap.

"Yeah, but so do Minato-kun and Inoichi-kun. I think they're starting to grow." Jiraiya sighed and sat up when the blonde woman motioned for him too. "She's with Uzumaki Kushina right now, Tsunade-hime."

"Stop calling me that." The medical prodigy snapped, poking harder than necessary to feel breaks in ribs even though she had been the one to heal those half a year ago. "And again? It's been a few _months_ since Mito-sama died and Natsumi-chan damn near dropped _everything_ to sit by her in silence. I want my babysitter back, Jiraiya."

"I should complain about unpaid labor." Konoha's only true remaining fuuinjutsu user grumbled to himself, trying to ignore the slightly worried tone in his teammate's voice that gave away the lie to the cruel edge of the words until stern gold eyes pinned him in place and he relented. He knew Tsunade _liked_ Natsumi taking on Nawaki's care because the ex-AnBu assassin would probably happily butcher _anyone_ coming after the younger of the two remaining direct Senju descendants, having a low tolerance for kidnappers if what she did during Kushina's had anything to say about it. The Slug Princess was many things, but a field capable iryou-nin first and foremost, _then_ a kunoichi as ruthless as any shinobi could be, and a healer at the very end of that list of things she was. _Senju_ Tsunade, a kunoichi of Konohagakure, was fretting more about the missing bodyguard for her clan's only other heir than free child care for said brat. Babysitting was just a convenient cover for having an extra AnBu on hand in case of emergency. "It's not Mito-sama again, it's a fuuinjutsu exercise."

The sibilant, hissing laugh from the doorway drew both of their attention to the last member of the sannin team come to check in on him. "Little Natsumi-chan? What is she up to with Kushina-sama?"

"Something to do with her Look Again Jutsu. Mikoto-chan made a comment to Fugaku-san, who commented on it to Minato-kun, who told Kushina-chan about the supposedly hypothetical question during their twice a month meetings and the little firecracker ran with the idea and my little neko-chan all the way to honorable Mito-sama's fuuinjutsu library. I'm supposed to go there and pitch in after this, according to R&D's fanatical need for any information on the damn technique." Jiraiya sometimes wondered about Orochimaru's interest in his female student who was actually a forty year old soldier that probably saw him more as a comrade than a teacher. It had really only began when he explained what he knew of why the Uchiha clan was being so pissy and the Hyuuga clan was acting so smug recently.

The outcome of that initial 'general melee spar' had surprising and far reaching effects for a spar between ninja children, clan or no. Sakumo had first covered for his little soon to be apprentice with the truth by claiming it was a technique she had developed for classified work and not trumping the Military Police, which all ninja knew meant for AnBu or Hunter-nin reasons, and they hadn't know it could be used like that until she started testing it out on the best of the best of Konoha for her validation period before being credited for the creation of an original jutsu. The shinobi corps dropped the issue then, but the civilians had continued to be upset some little quirk of Natsumi's chakra nature had developed the damn near perfect counter to an Uchiha's eyes since 'they protected everyone in the village and some no named genin could get around them now'. Right on up until news leaked about the girl working with the Uchiha clan heir and his intended bride about possible counters. Then the shinobi of Konoha had gotten curious about why she wanted one and the civilians dropped the subject as dealt with. And then, though the Toad Sage was sure it was the work of his little ex-AnBu kitty cat herself there, news had somehow gone around that if Mesuji could counter the Uchihas, and the Hyuugas could counter Mesuji, there was a suspected fourth bloodline that could counter the Hyuugas and fall to the Uchihas. It was a pretty piece of work, really, taking advantage of the shinobi curse of rampant curiosity and the civilians near _need_ to gossip about their protectors. All attention had been drawn to postulating the fourth kekkai genkai instead of an orphaned young girl that really _hated_ the attention.

Although, if there really would be a bloodline named Mesuji a couple of decades from now Jiraiya would laugh his ass off. He and Natsumi had taken a day the team had off once and been forced to conclude that her purple chakra tint was carried over from her previous life, because Ma and Pa both wouldn't be budged from that position once consulted about it. She had been as upset as her AnBu training allowed her to show him for the time being, because she wanted to teach the others what she could do and without that second store of spiritual energy, a sort of double layer impossible to replicate since it was backwards from any other possibility Jiraiya could think of, it was beyond anyone but Natsumi's ability to use. In other words, without the nearly thirty years of purely spiritual energy overlaying her near thirteen years of both physical and spiritual here _and the ability to separate and use it independently from her main chakra network,_ the assassin wouldn't have been able to stumble upon the direct-able, double-sight-in-real-time jutsu to begin with. Though it had played hell with the girl's ability to use any other kind of jutsu or chakra based trick until they realized the natural process used by her AnBu developed jutsu was screwing her up in molding the chakra needed for anything else besides that and a few E-ranked jutsus that didn't require much chakra to start with. The large number of control polishing tricks and exercises she knew hadn't done much but increase the amount of that older spiritual energy she could bring to bear at once with her balanced chakra of her current body, and hadn't she been irritated to learn _that_?

Though maybe that was what Kushina was up to, since the comment he had heard Minato report had been '_why couldn't they use Natsumi-sempai's spiritual energy without her chakra if she could'_?

Naming the damn fake genjutsu so it could be properly sorted was a story in itself, something drawn from the descriptions given of the effects. And it still wasn't properly sorted as either a ninjutsu or an actual genjutsu like they had all thought except Natsumi herself, since the scientists in charge of that were split down the middle about it and could only pick at the theoretical idea without the assassin present to demonstrate. On one hand, the jutsu affected the chakra gate near the eyes like a proper genjutsu based around sight, but it didn't replace the field of view with the caster's imagined scenery. On the other, it only affected vision and not the rest of the target or anything around him or her, so it really wasn't a ninjutsu. The spiritual nature of the jutsu made it damn hard to detect or even dispel with a sharp release of both physical and spiritual energy, since that relied on the physical knocking each other off target. He had only managed once with senjutsu, and that was when they were discussing it with Ma and Pa. It wasn't really even a kekkai genkai, since it was spiritual and not a physical quirk of Natsumi's. The whole thing just gave him a splitting migraine every time someone brought up R&D, and he had been desperately thankful when the girl-woman had finally named it and kicked the mess over to R&D with her carefully edited notes about the process and effects.

Though with how much the scientific division was bugging him about it, he was tempted to write up Natsumi's needed notes of recommendation for reinstatement to AnBu if she would only murder the lot of them for him. Good thing Minato had been enthralled with his fuuinjutsu work and was pouring over a number of journals and scrolls about it while practicing his calligraphy whenever he could and Inoichi had to spend a good solid month and frequent days on end with his clan developing some kind of mind walker trick he had dreamed up. If they hadn't had their own projects to work on, the attention the girl-woman had gotten the last few months would have at least dented the boys' relationship with her if not fostered some kind of resentment.

The flair and ebb of iryou jutsu soothed out the headache Jiraiya had building up again behind his hitai-ate. He quirked a smirk at the Senju heiress and the little furrow between her eyes that told him she was worried. "Natsumi-chan's getting a bit fed up with the attention on her again, so she'll be back in a few days, Tsunade-hime. Though I have a question for the both of you now that you both are here. Free next Saturday?"

\V/

Jiraiya finally bowed to the inevitable and furnished the jounin standard apartment assigned to him once winter threatened Konohagakure with icy rain and biting winds. He had asked Natsumi first to help, but she had given him such a disgusted look and pointedly asked _why_ did he think she ever make a good interior decorator if she had completely failed flower arranging in the academy, making her teammates snicker to themselves, while dragging the confused older looking shinobi to Mikoto.

Then the ex-AnBu assassin had to ride herd on the Uchiha girl's decorating impulses, and all three males made a mental note to never shop with the female sharingan user ever, _ever_ again.

Now, the small group of chuunin and genin could use the space to meet up during the worst of the winter weather instead of Minato's or Natsumi's single room genin apartments like they had planned on doing.

Inoichi thought it was really awesome of their white haired sensei to offer, because last year when a number of them were still in the academy Hiashi nearly got frostbite from their twice a month-ish meetings and his own lips had turned blue before he even got home.

The Hyuuga twins were now seated on one of the large couches with the Uchiha couple, Hiashi glaring at his twin for politely asking if he was warm enough while Fugaku listened to Mikoto explaining a genjutsu she had been working on. Shikaku was napping on the floor before the low table Minato and Kushina had taken over from Chouza's pre-dinner spread and were comparing fuuinjutsu ideas and swapping tips and tricks on, and Natsumi was making tea. She was still the only one Jiraiya would allow in the kitchen by herself, since Inoichi and Minato hadn't known that flour was combustible until they set a crock of it near the gas stove.

In other news, both he and Minato now knew how to make explosives if ever cornered in a kitchen by enemy ninjas, and the Toad Sage would never get his security deposit back without a lot of work. Natsumi had been most unhelpful in pointing both out to all three of them after the fact with a lot of snickering once she heard about the incident.

The misplaced soldier brought in the tea tray and started passing out hot mugs, taking one for herself and sitting next to Shikaku's prostrated form and taking a good look at the fuuinjutsu spread out.

"Natsumi-chan?" A light blue eye glanced at him, and Inoichi counted that as a win since she always did get distracted like the rest of his team when someone started talking about seals around them. "Why are there five extra mugs?"

She blinked at him, but before she was able to say anything the door opened and a brown, toddler sized blur darted to Natsumi's side, planting a foot in Shikaku's stomach on the way and making the Nara heir wheeze out a choked cough. "Na-cha!"

The ex-AnBu calmly reached over and tugged the kid into her lap with a small smile before answering him. "Sensei's bringing friends."

With a firm hold on the young Senju Nawaki, she was the only one not to suddenly face the doorway. Inoichi had this feeling that the night would be a surprised field test of Natsumi's mental health, and he wasn't sure if she had studied for it.

(ooo000ooo)

Sarutobi Hiruzen wasn't sure why Jiraiya had invited him along with his teammates and Hatake Sakumo to his apartment, but he had to admit the younger children, and a few of the older ones, sitting around his student's living room were amusing to watch in action.

After the first awkward moment when the younger shinobi realized who was standing in the doorway, Mesuji barked at the Yamanaka heir. "Out of the chair, Inoichi-kun."

"Why?" The boy had spluttered, but getting up anyways and joined the rest of them scrambling upright around the table to show respect for the Hokage.

"Cause your back would hurt too doing paperwork all day, gaki." Apparently, Tsunade had been anticipated in her train of thought and she chivvied everyone properly into the Toad Sage's apartment. Once he had been settled in the squishy armchair and pressed with a mug of hot tea, everyone else found somewhere to sit. "Who made the tea?"

"I did, Tsunade-sama." The rather cheerful assassin had answered, looking a lot better than the last time Hiruzen had seen the waif. "Sensei doesn't trust the boys, and he didn't know if any of the clan kids could since they are, _you know_, clan kids." Mesuji caught the pillow thrown at the back of her head from one of the Hyuuga twins and threw it back without even looking around for her attacker. It hit the thrower square in the face.

A haughty sniff from the Uchiha kunoichi had broken the rest of whatever ice had held them silent in the face of the Sandaime Hokage-sama, and they started cautiously going back to whatever conversations they had going before their arrival. Sarutobi just listened in to the younger generation of shinobi talk to the older with a small smile on his face, sipping his tea peacefully. It was a nice break from his own home and the continuing wails of his youngest son, though Biwako would have something to say to him for not telling her about this and getting her out of the compound for a few hours.

"Orochimaru-sama, do you know many fuuton jutsus?" The ex-ANBU Panther had asked some time later, all the while picking out the pins holding her hair up in an efficient bun. Little Nawaki was making grasping motions for it and squealed happily when the dark hair fell down, nearly choking the unaware Nara heir laying behind her with the length smacking into his face.

The Snake Summoner peered down at the girl with a raised eyebrow, distracted from his conversation with the Uchiha heir about the mechanics of an activated sharingan eye. "Not very many. Fuuton jutsus are more common in Wind Country than Fire, since most Suna shinobi have the wind element naturally. Do you need them, Mesuji-chan?"

"No, Orochimaru-sama, and it's Natsumi, please. Minato-kun does need them, though. Sensei had us tested for elemental affinities this week and he drew that, but there is very little on fuuton in the genin level jutsu library." She smiled a lopsided grin and took back the pins the Nara passed to her along with a dry look. "I've heard you're a combat ninjutsu specialist, which would mean you'd have a better idea than anyone else would where to find some."

"I'll be fine with what we can dig up!" Protested Namikaze hurriedly as he went beet red, probably appalled at asking a sannin that wasn't his teacher about his troubles with elemental jutsus.

Jiraiya poked his prized student in the side, looking over at the fuuinjutsu project proposal by his blond apprentice and the Uzumaki girl laid out over his coffee table for him. "I was going to ask him anyways, Minato-kun. I don't know _any_ fuuton jutsus."

Sarutobi smiled behind the rim of his mug of tea. A few months ago, Jiraiya would have cut out his own tongue rather than ask his teammate for help on something jutsu related. He would have tried doing it himself, and only when he had exhausted any kind of possible lead would he ask him and not Orochimaru. Taking on a genin team was good for the man's pride, forcing him to take in the fact he had three young ninjas looking to him as their guide down the rocky shinobi path and not stubbornly clinging to the eroded sense of inadequacy he had felt on the much touted genin team he was assigned to after graduating the ninja academy with average scores.

He probably would deny it later on, but Orochimaru all but preened under the admiring stares of the younger generation. Maybe the Snake Summoner would do well with the responsibility of a genin team as well. "I'll pass what I can find to Jiraiya-kun."

"Speaking of jutsus, Natsumi-chan, has R&D finally stopped running in circles around you?" Sakumo toed his ex-squad mate's shoulder with his question.

The girl bent backwards over the Nara heir to look at her old superior, letting the younger Senju settle for a nap on her stomach blanked by dark tangled hair. "Not yet, taicho."

Tsunade's head snapped up as she was reminded of something and she _glared_ at the suddenly paling head of the Hatake clan, leaving the other girls she had been giving iryou-nin and kunoichi tips to their own devices so she could haul the AnBu captain away to lecture him on the minimum diet needed by young children, ninjas or not. Hiruzen made a mental note to assign Sakumo a month long mission out of the village at the very least, he was a good shinobi and an AnBu captain and deserved a little help out of the hole he found himself in. Letting the Slug Princess dent him would bring down AnBu efficiency, and leave more than a few high risk missions uncompleted until he recovered, after all.

"You're looking pretty comfortable over there, Natsumi-chan." Kushina remarked with an evil looking smile, given her age and temperament it was likely the red headed Uzumaki girl was annoyed with the Slug Princess' distraction on behalf of the ex-AnBu assassin's continuing health concerns. "Is there something you two would like to share with the class?"

The young jinchuuriki had pitched her voice enough to carry even to the Senju heiress and the cringing AnBu captain, drawing everyone's attention to the girl's admittedly awkward looking position of sitting on her feet and bent backwards over another young teen with a sleeping child reclining on her. Natsumi blinked her eyes one at a time, something that apparently others found as creepy as he did, then tilted her head up to eye the blanching Nara heir with a wicked looking smirk.

"You make a very comfortable pillow, Shikaku-kun. Every girl needs a pillow like you in their bed-err … _life_."

There was a beat of silence, almost as if no one believed they heard the girl right.

THWAK!

"Damn it, Tsunade-hime! I swear, she's doing that on _purpose!_"

"_STOP CALLING ME THAT!_"

Hiruzen sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose as two thirds of his old genin team regressed to academy age children, the actual children started laughing loudly, and Orochimaru gave him a flat _look at what I have to deal with_ stare. Maybe he'd hold off giving the Snake Summoner a team and tell his wife about this in a few years. Kami _knew_ Asuma was probably quieter than this group.

* * *

_AN#2 Since a lot of you won't be able to review to pose questions and before anyone thinks to ask: The chakra assisted jumping used by most ninjas is currently out of Natsumi's grasp along with a lot of chakra based skills and D or above ranked jutsus besides her one ace in the hole that has yet to be ranked. She can tree walk, but it fails about half the time and she just gets wet trying to water walk. What she was doing when running after Minato and while with ANBU is called free running, using forward momentum when sprinting to reach ledges and keep up with others by finding a similar but more complicated route. Not very efficient compared to most ninjas, and she was slower than her squad mates, but it will give her a bit of a leg up once she finally figures it out. It did do a bit of damage to her body as well as using a lot more energy than chakra assisted jumps do, which was really why she got so thin, but Tsunade's on the case now._

_The ranks, I think, go like this: E for civilians with no training and the basic of basic ninja skills; D for genins, missions that take genin level skills, bandits, and Ronin; C for chuunins, the basics of elemental based jutsus and techniques like shunshin (considered the basics for really good ninjas that get above C-rank), missions involving unknown but hostile foreign ninjas, and taking on lesser trained samurai in a fight; B for special jounins, the mid-level elemental jutsus that rely on elemental chakra manipulation to be used, teams of trained guards, main bases for criminal gangs, and most samurai; A for actual jounins, terrain affecting jutsus, being able to use solely one type of ninja art like fuuinjutsu or iryou jutsu in pitched combat, and the better samurais; S for anything above that up to kage's level and skills; and SS for ninjas or missions that could kill a kage without a lot of skill and luck. _

_So a genin team has a general rank of D, D, D, A; three genin and jounin, evened out that would make the highest level of mission available right off the bat C, and possibly B if they're really good after developing teamwork between themselves and a number of successful C-ranks. I highly doubt a jounin would take a C-rank for a team of fresh genins, though. The sannins here just got their S-rank for the fight against Hanzo, better than jounin but not quite as good as a kage alone. Natsumi has an official ranking of D and an ANBU assassin ranking of B only because of her ANBU squad getting her to her targets, or leading them away to her for the actual killing, giving her an averaged C-rank as a kunoichi; in terms of genin level ninja skills, ANBU experience in fighting foreign ninjas, and the completed B-ranked assassinations under her belt. So she's technically better than genin but without many of the skills trained into one. The genin team the story is looking in on has at best a D, D, C, S rank right now. But with Jiraiya's S-rank so new and the man injured, Natsumi could only take on a C-ranked mission for her team with support of her sensei's reputation and the rest of her team. Alone, and mainly because of her time in ANBU, she would probably be a D to C-ranked assassin, able to (theoretically) go up against those around her own rank and slaughter civilians, but would probably die trying to off the B's she used to without her squad. Without chakra, she won't be able to go any higher. _

_Confused yet? My head hurts. Someone please tell me if I got Hiruzen's wife's name right and the actual Japanese term for special jounin. _


	3. Of Ninjutsu and Fixations

**Disclaimer :** Naruto and all related characters and settings do not belong to me. I'm just here on vacation.

**Rating :** T for all the lovely homicide being planned… not really. T for naughty language, violent things, and mind screws … so far.

**Author's Note** : And all I can say is … really? I've got a number of other fics that need to be worked on, and all I can do at the moment is this one and **Deus ex** without scraping what I work on half an hour later of brain bashing against writer's block. Let me know if you need a breakdown of why thing happened the way they did, cause Natsumi's not going to pull her head out of her ass about it until… the next part after next? Sounds about right.

Have you ever noticed how the word assassin is spelled? Ass- -ass- -in! You know, like … I've been writing Natsumi too much … I now know there are supposed to be all those little tabs and lines over a number of Japanese words I'm using, but for the sake of uniformity and speed I'm glossing over those here cause trying to find them is a bitch. So you may yell and nudge and hint all you want, it's staying this way and as close to the correct spelling as I can manage at the moment. Once the story is done I'll go through and fix that with the proper terms, but only when I have the time to sit down and do that for each term and chapter.

Also not sure how _Ansatsu Senjutsu Tokushu Butai_ was supposed to translate over to the English acronym _ANBU _in my head. You'd think it'd be ASTB. Honestly, it's supposed to be An and Bu put together to make AnBu, for the first syllables in the first and last word, but I'm too lazy to go back and correct it even now that I know that. I'll get around to it since acronyms are something the f&r function doesn't like to fix for you.

Second to last problem, Nawaki's age. I recently found that he was supposed to die either in the beginning or end of the Second and possibly even the start of the Third Great Shinobi War, and all I can say is … oops? He'll have died in the 'last life cannon' of this around the middle of the Third … that works, right?

Last thing (s), someone please tell me what the hell the title the Ame kage is called by. I can't find it at all with what limited internet I have usually cause it doesn't like Narutopedia, like at all. I found the rest of them, though. And yeah, I'm trolling other people's fics for terms, jutsus, and whatnot.

Quick question, how many of you care what I do to the couples not really covered by cannon? I mean, there getting screwed up anyways because half the people aren't even _named_ outside of fanfic, but still …

**cormalin** and ** KleverKilva** share joint credit for the correct Japanese term for special jounin spelling, since I can't tell who submitted it first. You two reviewed almost at the same moment and I almost didn't actually use it in this part. **cormalin **also checked my spelling of the Third Hokage's wife's name and **Sonea66** did as well for both, and actually gave me a breakdown of Biwako's name. Thank you lovelies.

**monophonic, **the story is gen until they get to the age to think of it themselves. Right now only the clan shinobi around this age, and one worried red head, are thinking of marriage and not even all the fun things that go with that, though the older ones are starting to realize their hormones are becoming a little unmanageable. I had considered leaving Natsumi single, so yes she's got something in her future, but with a biological clock primed with thirty years on it already that wasn't looking likely at all.

**Mybffisazombie** Natsumi's old US Army rank was Staff Sargent, E-6, which let her lead a platoon of soldiers around eight to twelve in number. NCO not Officer. But she's not arguing the on the spot commission.

**xXKaminari-TsubasaXx** and **Wandering Sprite**, thank you. Though you really can see how often I can get online these days, huh?

* * *

**Part 3: Of Ninjutsu and Fixations**

_Morals are a wonderful thing. The innate guide for proper behavior, both taught and learned by watching the world events happen around you._

_However, which is right when two separate sets of morals clash over the same troubling issue?_

* * *

Natsumi firmly ignored the panic boiling up from her guts, sticking one chakra coated ninja sandal to the underside of the branch before attempting to move her other foot forward.

It was so _stupid_ to be scared of falling off, that was why Jiraiya was standing just beneath her ready and willing to catch her if her control slipped. She knew this was possible to do because shinobi stuck to walls and things all the time and she saw it nearly on a daily basis now, like the kunoichi just the other day that walked up a storefront just to get out of the civilian foot traffic.

But a lifetime of experience in how gravity worked was not so easily overcome by telling herself not to be scared of falling and if they could do it, so could she.

Tree walking was a basic genin skill. A _freaking_ genin level skill she sometimes couldn't do because of some supposed accident of her chakra nature.

Barely a month ago Senju Tsunade had finally gotten the time to see to ensuring their continuing health after all the walking wounded from the war effort had been dragged kicking and screaming, sometimes literally, to the hospital so they could be checked out for any lingering problems to hastily patched wounds. Genin were not as high priority as jounin, even if she knew them personally, so the massive backlog from the war veterans' medical reports and notations had eaten most of her free time up until the scheduled appointments for them came due.

Jiraiya's genin team went in for the round of mandatory physicals to get them out of the way as ordered after six months of missions since graduating the academy, with the ex-AnBu assassin attached to them two months before that and who had never had a shinobi standard physical in her life besides the brief one covering the usual before getting her AnBu tattoo.

This one had covered the normal stuff Natsumi was used to in military standard health screenings and the one she had gotten before getting her Panther mask; eye sight, reflex speed, gums and teeth, height and weight, immunization shots; but it also covered a few extra items she had never seen before or had even thought of. Muscle tone, bone density, and chakra system for all shinobi and body fat percentage for kunoichi.

The Slug Princess, having been told by her teammate that his female student was still wary of being touched casually if you could actually _do_ her harm, had explained each and every routine to her before conducting her full yearly physical. The misplaced soldier was deeply grateful for her sensei covering any unusual reactions from her as something from her time in AnBu _before_ she had to face the female sannin in only a paper gown with a wide slit in the back about her chakra system and poor weight gain.

Some things never changed, and the scary medic-doctor person glaring at you when you were underdressed and feeling _really_ exposed and guilty about your eating habits was one of them.

Shinobi of Konohagakure had their chakra networks inspected annually, every other physical they went in for. By a Hyuuga iryou-nin from another room before anyone got naked, but it was still inspected for any unusual stressing or abnormalities. Or ninja wearing another's face, but that rarely happened.

Apparently her middle name was abnormality.

Her iryou-nin done medical report had dissected the problem even better than Ma and Pa Toad could with senjutsu, finally giving her the news on how to fix it. The first bit of news was that spiritual energy she had kept from her past life was overpowering her physical of this life. They had _known_ that already, it was why she could only use her one jutsu. But Tsunade had added that unless she could keep that in check by making herself hold it all in second nature to keep up, she would never get better than a C-ranked kunoichi without more than that one jutsu and the E-ranks to her arsenal, _because_ of that spiritual overpowering her physical kept her from balancing enough chakra to power even D-ranked jutsus.

That was the full diagnostic results ran on her as decrypted by the Toad Sage.

Natsumi _had_ to get better than chuunin, some of the threats to Minato, Kushina, and Naruto were _SS_-ranked and she wouldn't last two seconds in a fight against something like _that_ if she didn't fix the problem holding her at a C-rank. So now she was upside down, walking back and forward under a tree branch with her sensei standing beneath her waiting for her to fall off and keeping note of how long she was up there.

Humiliation, thy name was tree walking. Sometimes she couldn't believe the shit she did for her kouhai. It seemed that giving up AnBu for the time being had only been the start of it, if what she was diligently doing again and again now was any measure.

Minato and Inoichi, having already mastered this part of shinobi life, were ensconced with their own projects on the other side of the training ground's clearing. Actually Inoichi was, the other blond on the team was worriedly eyeing his sempai's progress.

And knowing that was throwing off Natsumi's concentration. Damn blonds.

Shakily though, she managed another circuit of her chakra exercise before falling off again.

Jiraiya caught her without a sound or grunt escaping him, taking one good look at his female student's paper white face before setting her on the ground and plucking a leaf off the tree for her. "An hour better than you're last attempt, Natsumi-chan. Take a breather while I go talk to the boys and see how they're doing."

The ex-AnBu assassin took the leaf unenthusiastically, weakly smiling up at her sensei when he patted her on the head. Sticking it to the tip of her nose for the new exercise, she watched the older looking shinobi walk across the clearing to see the results of the elemental chakra manipulation exercises done by her blond teammates. She finally did crack a genuine smirk when her kouhai scrambled for more leaves to cut with the fuuton control exercise Orochimaru had dug up for him.

She and Jiraiya had an odd relationship for something between teacher and student, to say the least. While he treated them all the same when the team was with him, like annoying brats more often than not, he actually talked to her like the adult she used to be when it was just them. They bickered over the reasoning for their actions, called each other rude or insulting names, and she cheerfully blamed him when she cracked a perverted joke in retaliation of his spying cover being shoved under their noses when he checked in on civilian gossip around the village. But she had recently started telling him some of her past life, the bits that wouldn't seem like much to someone of her past but were interesting and unusual to someone of this life, and in return he told her some of what he had seen in his twenty odd years.

The Toad Sage had compared her life now to an indefinite undercover mission and had flat out told her to her face that she needed an outlet or the nightmares that plagued her in AnBu would probably never stop, driving her finally over the edge of sanity she had been trying to avoid on her own. Good thing the man hadn't cared for her and Inoichi's conversations on psychology, beyond knowing how to predict the way people would react most of the time, or he would have known she was far beyond that point.

She could have gone to Minato, Inoichi, Kushina, Mikoto, Shikaku, Chouza, and Hizashi; any of them would have helped her after understanding the point the white haired sannin raised. Natsumi had started giving little pieces of that past to the others when it seemed to fit, she was teaching Shikaku the tactical games common in her last life and cooking some of her old favorites for Chouza to try. But she felt a lot better with only letting Jiraiya hear about the places she had seen, the history only she knew now, and people only she had known there. It had just seemed to be a better idea to trust the master spy with information that she would have preferred never to have seen the light of day, even if she would never breathe a word of the leisure habits of that life no matter what happened. He did know how to keep a secret much better than the shinobi of her academy years.

The exchange had helped the both of them get used to the other in the beginning after the events following Kushina's kidnapping and the _newness_ to the situation wore off, because the two of them had started to circle the other like the type of cat she was called by in AnBu. Jiraiya had been uneasy with 'teaching' a woman stuck in a girl's body, a warrior of another age that probably had a good idea on what to do in battle already. Natsumi had been unsettled with the fact the sannin knew that she had lived another life, knew that she knew what it was like to die in a violent manner. Minato had been the one to point out to them, after Inoichi told him the reasons his sempai and sensei were grating against each other's nerves, that the assassin was still in training for higher _shinobi_ ranks and skills and the Toad Sage hadn't really cared about her previous death in the least _beyond_ what secret they were all keeping from him.

Now it was more like an older uncle to a younger niece, a _lot_ more than Natsumi had been expecting from any teacher assigned to her much less from someone that knew of her history. She had maybe convinced herself that Jiraiya would mostly ignore her after poking at her sore spots and possibly taking a look at her chakra and finding a solution. He instead listened to her life before finding a solution for her chakra troubles with his and Tsunade's skills and was now working on it with her in between missions and training sessions and helping Inoichi in keeping her on an even keel, not content unless he knew the problem was solved.

Natsumi would have been intensely uncomfortable under that kind of attention, except he did the same for her kouhai and their other teammate, cycling through those individual lessons and one on one coaching they asked for with broader lessons and training to develop their skills and knowledge in different areas. Minato had his time every four days just before she did, pouring over more complicated fuuinjutsu than they all were taught with the older man, and Inoichi would use the sannin to bounce ideas off of tomorrow, and to find him willing test subjects for his developing mind jutsus, before a day of individual skill polishing and they did the loop over again.

Narrowing her focus to the smear of green in front of her face, the assassin figured she should get back to concentrating on what she was doing. The quicker it was all over, the quicker she could try some of those mythical seeming ninjutsus for herself.

(ooo000ooo)

"So, how's Natsumi-chan doing?" Sakumo asked when he and Jiraiya met up later the same night in a shinobi bar.

Civilians didn't like drinking with killers and mercenaries for some odd reason, so they had their own set of bars to frequent when wanting to drink each other under the table.

It had become almost traditional for the head of the Hatake clan, such as it was, to ask the Toad Sage about the student they would be sharing when the AnBu captain caught up with his old friend when he made it back to the village. The white haired didn't mind his silver haired companion asking about his female student, and the other man's old subordinate, because he tended to wax lyrically about Minato's sealing interest and skills whenever he could to whoever would listen and this way it didn't look like favoritism.

Yamanaka Inoichi had his own support base, he had an _entire_ clan interested in their heir's progress. So Jiraiya's lack of boasting about his blond haired but lavender eyed student's progress to anyone outside that clan was only the common sense of any jounin-sensei that took on clan affiliated genin.

But the Toad Sage didn't intend on keeping his genin team together after they made chuunin like his sensei had done for the sannin, their interests and skills were too far apart on the spectrum of ninja arts for a general use chuunin or jounin team, and if he apprenticed one of his orphans and had no other options to give his other one when the other blond student of his went back to his clan for further training a lot of shinobi would start asking about it.

Originally, he had thought Mesuji Natsumi would go back to AnBu as a chuunin with more experience under her belt, after replacing the weak link in his team that had no real talent for their kind of life and he figured out what was wrong with her chakra network. AnBu had its' own covers made up for returning agents, out for whatever reason, and wouldn't have been a problem for anyone. That was what he had planned on when he suggested to Hiruzen-sensei that he take her out of AnBu for a while and let the little kitty grow up some. But his plan had switched tracks with her captain's, who turned out to be his old friend like he had thought, suggestion of teaching her kenjutsu and completely derailed with her forced retirement from AnBu when she went and backed up his protégé's mad dash after his academy friend. That cart finally crashed and burned when what his gakis knew of reincarnation came to light.

There was _no way in hell_ was he letting only AnBu hold onto _that_ kind of perseverance needed to thrive after a traumatic injury and the iron guts that it took to rebuild a life from scratch in a completely different one from what she had known before, not to mention the _years_ of military leadership experience the girl-woman held. There were so many ways he could think to utilize that prior experience and level of commitment for Konoha's benefit, and she could make a damn fine jounin kunoichi to complement his fuuinjutsu specializing student later on _without_ the shadow guard, no matter their plans for her future. He just had to show her that with examples like Tsunade-hime and himself before she decided to go back. Her mental health was a little alarming at present, but with the heir of a clan that specialized in mind games and interrogation keeping watch after solving the worst of it already, the Toad Sage had no doubts that by the time they all made chuunin it would be manageable and the dual eyed girl-woman would be mostly normal… _-ish_.

Besides, it was fun to spend time with the ex-soldier turned kunoichi assassin that looked like a preteen girl when collecting the general intelligence available from the civilians. He didn't have to watch what he said to her the same way he had to watch what he said to the rest of the team right now, and it was kinda fascinating to hear about sights, people, and insults of civilizations long since gone by.

"Frustrated with her slow progress. Can't really blame little neko-chan for that one, though." Jiraiya sighed, tugging a hand through unruly hair before pouring them both a saucer of sake. "I'm starting to get a little frustrated with it too. She's just so used to reaching for that other energy along with her chakra for her jutsu that it's hard for her to separate it and hold that part back."

Sakumo hummed in the back of his throat before tipping back the small clay dish and swallowing the alcohol. "Try having her focus her chakra in a weapon's blade, splitting it between the blade and hilt. That's how my clan learned to control themselves."

Jiraiya shot a look at his drinking companion, storing that bit of information away in his brain even as he made sure his friend was being serious. He had learned more than he ever wanted to about kekkai genkais in Konohagakure over the last few months, ever since they started using that publicly as a possibility for Natsumi's spiritual natured excess and the AnBu assassination technique she developed. Mostly, he learned how the clans taught the younger generation how not to screw themselves up for shinobi life. But that bit held promise, the Hatake's White Chakra Nature was the closest comparison they had to the girl-woman's and it would stand to reason the methods for control might be as similar.

"You're still set on teaching her kenjutsu, right? Got a bokken she can use for that?"

\V/

Watching the red head Uzumaki preteen sink into hot water was always amusing, since she would dart into the water with a splash and almost reverently relax against the side of the hot spring with some kind of animalistic sound. Natsumi and Mikoto exchanged dryly humorous looks at the preteen's groan of almost-pain as they followed more sedately, wrapped in the towels supplied by the onsen for bathers.

"Are you sure you don't want any help with whatever it is you're doing, Kushina-hime?" The ex-AnBu asked as she slowly sunk into the steaming waters of the bath house. "It sounds _strenuous_."

Getting used to public bathing hadn't been a problem for her, kami-sama _knew_ the military communal showers in her last life had shown her more bare female flesh than she had ever wanted to see herself. After a while, like a little before basic training ended and long before the military first sent you out into the field, it had stopped becoming weird to see another naked person of your own gender and you just casually asked the soldier under the shower head next to you if you could use her conditioner before turning back to the reason you all were buck naked and wet in the first place.

"If you meant that in the same way you're pervert of a sensei would say it, Natsumi-chan, I'm going to hold you underwater until you stop struggling." Kushina threatened half-heartedly with a lazy smirk.

"Ooh, death by onsen… sounds serious." Natsumi nodded faux importantly, causing the two kunoichi with her to giggle.

The three of them were in the kunoichi pool, set aside with another one for the male ninjas behind the wooden divider by the owners of the onsen within Konoha solely for the protectors of the village. The reason for it was simple. Shinobi had scars and injuries that most civilians never wanted to see on the warriors that represented the military strength of Konoha, so they never saw them. It was a little insulting and appreciated at the same time. On one hand, no one liked to be stared at when trying to relax and it was doubly dangerous to stare at and unsettle a shinobi. On the other, it was kind of like denying the ninjas the right to be injured in service to the village.

But no shinobi worth their weight would sneer at privacy and the space to hide a weaknesses, so they went with it.

The misplaced soldier had her own scars on this almost too thin preteen's body, acquired by the time she spent in AnBu and a few training accidents, but only one of the other two she was visiting the bath house with had some as well. Mikoto had a stab wound scar on her back, the edges still pink and telling the ex-AnBu assassin that someone had almost managed to kill the Uchiha teen under three months ago, a few that looked like childhood scars from the usual assortment of injuries, and a number of thin white lines showing on her arms from learning how to use the razor wire favored by her clan in pitched battle. Kushina didn't have one, not even a mark from the misplaced soldier's kunai on the inside of her ankle caused during her kidnapping.

Natsumi knew that was because of both her kekkai genkai and 'fuzzy', the burden the Uzumaki had inherited from the honorable Mito-sama before her passing and was supposed to pass onto her own son, but still had pangs of jealous feelings for the unmarred skin of the other preteen. There wasn't even a seal to show where the nine tailed demon fox was contained, leaving naturally pale skin clear.

"So!" Using some of that unreal store of energy her clan was known for, Kushina suddenly popped upright and slung one arm over the Uchiha kunoichi's shoulder once all three of them had managed to relax into the hot water for a little while. "One, maybe two, more promotions before we're hitching you up! Excited?"

"Are you asking if I'm excited to be unable to publicly tell Fugaku-kun to shut up when he's being annoying? No, not really." Mikoto smirked at the red head's expression of surprised glee. "The guy's great and all, but way too stiff sometimes."

Natsumi's right eyebrow raised up sharply, looking sideways at the others in the hot spring with her. "Are you sure you want to say that, Mikoto-chan? There are so many ways I can-"

"No!" The Uchiha teen waved her hands between them with a panicked look. "I meant _proper!_ Proper, not stiff. Noodle like-oh _kami-sama._" With a despairing wail, Mitoko splashed the assassin with Kushina's enthusiastic help. "Bad kitty! You and your sensei are making us think perverted thoughts!"

The ex-AnBu squinted at them after being hit with the face full of water shoved at her, snickering all the while. "You said it, not me!"

Kushina cackled evilly, tackling her best friend into the water to keep the dual eyed girl-woman from dying as per her previous threat when the other teen looked ready to fulfill it.

It took the three of them a few more minutes to calm down, still splashing each other like children every few moments when one was suitably distracted. It gained them some annoyed looks but the other, mostly older kunoichi on the other end of the hot springs were tolerant of their younger sisters in arms messing around in secured places like the onsen compared to screwing around when there wasn't others nearby to guard their backs for them while distracted. And none of them in there was unarmed, even if the weapon of choice was water for the moment.

That may be another reason the civilians didn't like bathing with shinobi. Steel weapons in hot water. Huh.

"What about you, Natsumi-chan?"

The misplaced soldier froze at the wrong moment, inhaling again just as a wave of water from Mikoto hit her in the face. Spluttering, she hacked and coughed a few time to get her breathing back under her control. "_WHAT?"_

"You're not really supposed to die _here_, silly." Kushina clucked at her as she helped the Uchiha teen haul her upright. "And I was asking if you ever wanted to get married."

"Oh." Blinking dual eyes clear, she took a moment to think about that issue. That… was not something she had thought of before. With everything going on; her chakra difficulties now, AnBu before that, and being confused over reality for most her life here; Natsumi hadn't given thought to how she would fit into the future besides keeping her friends alive and happy. But she had always wanted a child of her own, and as siblings were never something she had growing up the first time and really liked about being alive now she wanted him or her to have a brother or sister to care for. Not that she had ever told Minato that she liked having him as an almost-little-brother, it sounded way to girly even in _her_ head. But it was something to offer to sate the other kunoichis' curiosity for now as she scrambled with this new issue. "I do eventually want children, at least two. I hadn't given a thought to with who yet."

"We're going to just have to think of someone you can have all the kids you want with, then." The red head told the blinking assassin, elbowing the Uchiha teen distractedly frowning at her dripping shoulder length hair to get her to agree.

"Kushina-hime… I don't think that's a good idea given-"

Scowling, the Uzumaki planted her hands on her hips and glared at the bewildered, misplaced soldier who trailed off uneasily. "If I was you, I would have ignored the shinobi life and found someone to be happy with instead of jumping in with both feet to the darker side. _Kami-sama_, Natsumi-chan! You deserve some kind of happiness after everything, and if gakis will do it for you then we'll help you get them, _dattebane!_"

Natsumi opened her mouth to sound out an automatic protest and snapped it shut without a word of argument spoken, her head of individual psychology training for managing platoons of soldiers kicking in and worrying the other preteen's motives over.

She had avoided the hell out of the other kunoichis just to keep from having to give an opinion on the subject of marriage and boys, weird out by the stubborn thought of _they were thirty years younger than her_, even though the general age of clan ninjas marrying was around fifteen and most shinobi saw to it they had at least one child by twenty at the latest to continue whatever skills they specialized in or family techniques they knew in case of premature death in the field. That had been the reason Mesuji Natsumi had been born, her kaa-san on this side wanted a legacy to give to the village even if she wouldn't, and eventually hadn't, been alive to see that legacy grow up into a good shinobi for Konoha.

But did Kushina think she would never have a family? Was that why she was insisting on this even though the ex-AnBu had never given any thought to it before? It was reasonable, taking into account that the Uzumaki was now the jinchuuriki for the Kyuubi, for her to think no one would want to willingly get that close to a demon container. Reasonable, but unlikely with what Natsumi knew. That may be why the preteen was trying to sound out the idea of setting her up with someone. Mikoto's future had already been planned for her, Kushina and everyone else knew what the Uchiha teen was doing with the rest of her life. But neither the assassin nor jinchuuriki had ever given each other any kind of hint to a preference for the future aside of being good kunoichi.

With her other life, the Uzumaki probably saw some parallels between them. A burden neither really wanted, but held onto for the village's benefit. Her with her prior military experience, and she with a demon in her gut. It didn't sound even at all, Natsumi didn't think her bloody death _remotely_ compared to dealing with Kurama's rage at this point in time, but if that was what the other kunoichi thought…

But… but _Kushina_ and _Minato_… right, getting ahead of herself. No one but her knew of her kouhai and the jinchuuriki being a couple before their end. And for fuck's sake, she wasn't supposed to know of the Kyuubi's location even with her low level _AnBu_ intelligence clearance. "Only if we can help you."

Blindsided with something she hadn't thought of being turned on her, the red head hesitated mid-nod. Mikoto, unknowing of what the real issue was besides Natsumi's past life, nodded seriously as she ensured her wired shuriken were tightly secured before they had the chance to slide out of her waterproofed thigh holster. "Right, sounds fair. We'll have to find someone for the both of you."

"R-right, dattebane…" Kushina faltered only another moment on agreeing, one hand drifting across her stomach.

"Agreed then. I'll go on a date when you do, Kushina-hime."

Secure in that promise, assuming that the Uzumaki preteen would be way too caught up in her kouhai in a few years to bother her about anything like that, she missed the momentarily calculating gleam in the Uchiha's eyes as she readjusted the bladed chopsticks holding her now wet hair up and handed back the senbon that had held up the red head's she had snatched from falling into the water earlier.

"I do hope you didn't mean we'd get the same man, Mikoto-chan."

"_NATSUMI!"_

"I'm just saying that it would be more than a little awkward, Kushina-hime. If you want to, though…"

"You'd better run, Natsumi-chan. I don't think I've ever seen her that red before."

\V/

Hatake Sakumo handed her a wooden sword the next time the whole group met up.

Natsumi inspected the length of dead tree in her hands for a moment, before curiously looking up at her old AnBu captain. "What's this for, taicho?"

The older looking, silver haired shinobi hunkered down to sit on his ankles. Hatake's apparently were all tall bastards regardless of generation, because that brought the two of them to eye level even with her slowly rising height. "I had the idea that since your chakra nature was similar to my family that the control methods we use might help you. Jiraiya knows the tricks now, but he asked for a bokken so you could get used to one before I start teaching you kenjutsu."

"Thanks, taicho. I promise to return it in the same condition." The misplaced soldier hefted the weight of the wood katana, knowing from another life wielding steel weapons, rifles not swords, about the same size that a real one wasn't too far off from the weighted one in her hands. Possibly a lead core inside to mimic the actual weight of a katana, or some kind of metal ore.

"Now put away you're pointy stick and come over here, Natsumi-sempai!" Minato grinned at the glare she shot his way. "What? It's pointy and a stick."

Oh dear kami-sama, she had made a monster out of her poor adorable little kouhai. "If I didn't think taicho would smack me, I'd smack you with my pointy stick." Natsumi earned herself a hair ruffle with that, and she switched targets for her evil look because the smirking older man had knocked off her hair bun with a few deft pulls before messing up her hair.

"In the interest of all our sanity, I'm going to have to insist the two of you shut up about pointy sticks now." Inoichi glowered at all of them from where he was seated with the Hyuuga twins, Chouza, and a grinning Mikoto playing poker. The Uchiha teen had to be cheating with her eyes in that group, since the Hyuugas were way too proper to use their kekkai genkai in such a manner even if it would be easier for them to hide it than their old genin teammate could.

Tucking away her hair ties in her thigh pouch, there really wasn't much of a point putting her hair back up when Nawaki had spotted her already and was grinning ear to ear, Natsumi tucked the wooden length against her side like any AnBu traveling with a live blade and nodded her thanks to her taicho for the training sword and then bowing to Hokage-sama and Biwako for hosting them all in the Sarutobi clan compound before walking across the yard with the older looking Hatake to see what the others around her physical age of thirteen were really doing under that table.

Sarutobi Hiruzen had told his wife about the gatherings the Toad Sage had invited him to only recently, and the woman was ecstatic over the idea and badgered her husband into inviting them all over for the next one. Biwako was a retired iryou-nin that specialized in kunoichi child birthing now, and with her own newborn to handle, Asuma_-chan_ and how weird was _that_, the woman had less and less time to socialize with others outside the clan compound or hospital so she had jumped on the idea with both feet.

These meetings, now that they were no longer over Natsumi's supposed sanity, were almost like mandatory officer and enlisted picnics that the misplaced soldier recalled from her other life just with the side option of testing each other in a spar or three. Jiraiya had been extremely amused to learn that his sensei's wife was following traditions of another age's military wives in wanting a party like atmosphere to include herself into. There were points where that parallel failed; Biwako had been part of this military before and could keep up with the usual discussions well enough without them having to change the topic to a safer one for civilians and besides the tea there was no food other than what the Akimichi heir had with him; but it was similar enough Natsumi felt echoes of her other life bleeding through.

Now it really was more like a social setting like Biwako thought than a meeting over the stability of mental health one of them probably didn't have.

Minato and Kushina had stolen the Toad Sage's attention and were deep in a discussion of barrier type fuuinjutsu, Tsunade was probably taking about recent medical jutsus and procedures with Biwako from what little she could understand of it, and now Sakumo and Hiruzen was listening to Uchiha Fugaku and Orochimaru discuss the recent findings of R&D as they all watched the blatant cheating going on at the poker table, as the card game wasn't really much fun for shinobi unless everyone was being underhanded at the same time.

Natsumi really didn't know what to make about the Snake Summoner, and she ran what she knew so far through her head as she watched the really ongoing game of who could cheat who the most.

Orochimaru had blown into the scientific research division after being formally pulled from the last of the war effort, put his foot down about his teammate's female student's time being wasted continually by going back and demonstrating her jutsu if it caused the civilian and shinobi researchers to be useless the rest of the day, and declared the technique the misplaced soldier had developed for her AnBu assassinations a _kinjutsu_ for everyone else's seeming inability to use it pending _kekkai genkai_ status if another of her bloodline _could_ use it and they couldn't find a method to mimic or reproduce the effects. No one had dared to argue with him and the subject of dissention was sorted accordingly, and Jiraiya had all but thrown the other sannin a party for dealing with the situation without letting it drag on for a few more years.

Now he was thick in the work she, Fugaku, and Mikoto had started, looking for a way to defeat the jutsu without mastering senjutsu for the Uchiha Clan. He had theorized that searching their methods of finding a counter would let him reverse engineer exactly how it was done, so their little study group put together by the Uchiha Clan now had a sannin's reasoning backing them up to the rest of the shinobi corps wondering why it was being worked on in the first place.

The man himself was perfectly decent for a ninja, if a bit snobbish in his jutsu classifications and way too interested in bloodlines for Natsumi's liking. He was also all different shades of creepy with the slit pupil serpent eyes and nearly paper white skin combined with the hiss like slur in his voice, the stamps mastering the Snake Summoning Contract had left on him for not at least learning some senjutsu beforehand. But Orochimaru was also a brilliant researcher in jutsu creation and how to defeat them if what she had seen these last few months were any measure of him. He was able to seamlessly fit in with their little Uchiha research group after the initial awkwardness created by his lofty rank, and had started giving sound suggestions for how to solve the problems they were running into after reading through and understanding their few months of work in an hour before that. He was also Jiraiya's best friend and old rival, and Tsunade's sounding board for her medical jutsu development.

But, and there was one hell of a _but_ in this, the man was also the one to create the Cursed Seal of Heaven from fuuinjutsu and had killed his sensei when aligned against Konohagakure's interest. He was the reason Yamato/Tenzou was implanted with Senju genes and the only reason that yet unborn kid had to grow up in AnBu. In his search for immortality he had subsumed the bodies of countless other shinobi as well as twisting a number of them around his little finger when he founded Otogakure, only to be used up as cannon folder or for experimentation later on. _He had defected from Konoha to be a nuke-nin_.

In both lives, the one she had lived and the one she was living now, any kind of betrayal was not acceptable for any reason.

So what the hell was she supposed to do with her interactions with him? Jiraiya saw the man like a brother, Senju Tsunade genuinely liked his help when she ran into a wall, and Sarutobi Hiruzen had taught him since childhood. And she did genuinely like the man at the moment for the help he had given her team, but she didn't trust him. At all.

So she simply watched the poker game in progress with her taicho as Nawaki amused himself with her long hair, listening to Fugaku and Orochimaru exchange ideas about how her jutsu worked and the methods needed to be tested to see if they could counter it. She had an idea, one that she had only thought of when last thinking on her kouhai's supposed death and was going to be stupidly hard for anyone else to use if she was right, but she wasn't going to offer it until the Snake Summoner proved to her what he was going to do in the end. The Uchiha Clan could wait.

(ooo000ooo)

"Aa, one moment the three of you." Jiraiya called out after his retreating team of gakis before they could get too far away from Hiruzen-sensei's clan compound.

Two blond heads and one dark one turned up to him, and the Toad Sage had to grin down at them. Minato and Natsumi both looked a little annoyed for being interrupted in whatever discussion they had going on and Inoichi looked desperately grateful for the reprieve.

"Chuunin exams are being held in Sunagakure in two months now that the war is completely ended and the non-aggression treaties are in effect. In or out?"

Natsumi _blanched _bone white, but his boys looked excited and whooped.

Jiraiya kept his eyes on the girl-woman as he answered the questions shot at him by two thirds of his team. Sakumo had told him about the quietness the misplaced soldier had shown when they had just approached the boarders of Wind Country, and now knowing what he knew it was perfectly understandable for her not to like the region. She had _died_ in a desert, and not even Inoichi's clan knew what kind of trauma that did to a mind. Jiraiya was sure that if anyone he cared for died, he would come to hate the weather and the place they died in much like how the kunoichi that looked like a girl didn't like the desert she and her platoon had been killed in once in another life.

But she _had_ to at least work through it enough so she could _visit_ the desert, missions to other countries were common at chuunin. Not to mention there was no way she would be able to avoid facing the sand dunes in AnBu if she did go back. There wasn't any kind of tag to put on her records to tell the mission office not to assign her Wind Country missions because of a trauma they couldn't share with them. If she couldn't even visit Suna in a non-combat situation and handle the small amount of combat expected in the chuunin exams, he wouldn't be able to let her continue her kunoichi career.

"You're an evil, _evil_ man, sensei." The assassin gave him a lopsided grin when she had recovered from the shock of his announcement. Minato and Inoichi did their own bit of paling when the reason behind her saying something like that to their teacher perforated their excitement for promotion. "Sure, I'm in. What about my chakra?"

"You have that pointy stick of Sakumo's, don't you? We'll work on it for the next month or two and get you comfortable with that."

\V/

"You don't have to come, sempai. I'm sure we can get Kushina-chan to fill in your spot on the team if you don't want to go to Suna." Minato told her a few days later, after he and Inoichi had pried the white haired man's reasoning out of him for suggesting they take the Sunagakure chuunin exams. They were now in the blond orphan's apartment, replacing and sharping several tools that had seen use lately.

"Watch your brush, and yes I do." Natsumi remarked from Minato's futon as she checked the sharpness of her kunai, lying on her stomach and kicking her feet in the air as she watched him replace the explosive tags he had used in their last C-ranked mission of clearing out a bandit group trying to knock over one of Konoha's supporting villages. She was pretty sure Hokage-sama wouldn't let them take the jinchuuriki out of the village for just a chuunin promotion exam, anyways. "Jiraiya-sensei has a point. I have to get over it if I'm going to continue being a kunoichi."

The blond hummed irritably as he checked his lines, scraping the tag he had been working on when he realized two lines had crossed where they shouldn't have. "You don't have to do anything you don't want to do, but if you insist…"

The misplaced soldier smirked as the other preteen trailed off and lightly blushed when Kushina all but kicked open his door, probably looking for her.

"Natsumi-chan, did you know one of the Hyuuga twins is trying to see you?" The red head asked before see exactly what she had walked in on. "Err… hi, Minato-kun."

"Which one, Kushina-hime? Hiashi-san or Hizashi-kun?"

"Erm… Hizashi-kun, I think. The nicer one, anyways."

Natsumi pushed herself upright and tossed her kunai back into her thigh pouch. She hadn't been expecting that. "Would you mind sitting here and watching my kouhai's lines? He tends to cross the Easterly Winds with the Bridge of Four Dragons in a standard yield explosive tag, and I don't feel like being blown up during the chuunin exams if he tried to use that in Suna."

Minato went beet red, much more clashing with his acid blond hair than the pinker flush from before. Flouncing over with a nod, Kushina plopped herself down in the space the assassin vacated. "Sure."

With a backwards wave of thanks she poked her head out of her kouhai's door and cocked an eyebrow at the Hyuuga standing a ways down the outside walkway that wrapped around the apartment building. "You had better be Hizashi-kun, because I haven't forgiven Hiashi-san yet for the Gentle Fist backhand he snuck in during our last spar."

She could barely tell in the dim evening light, but she was _sure_ there was some rolling of silver eyes going on over there. Hizashi then. Pulling herself back into Minato's little cubby of an apartment, she grinned at the desperate and panicky look her little kouhai gave her. "I'll be back later. Don't wait up, kids." She was sure any tags Minato worked on while she was gone would have to be scrapped, but the sacrifice would be worth it if he would just _stop_ stuttering around the other fuuinjutsu user.

Shutting the door behind her firmly, she strolled down over to the clan affiliated teen standing outside the floor reserved for jounin candidate genins without family or support. "What's up?"

"The sky." The Hyuuga deadpanned back, keeping his arms firmly crossed over his chest in the wide robes the Hyuuga clan favored for their shinobi. "May I have a moment of your time, Natsumi-san?"

She raised her eyebrow again.

Hizashi stiffened up even further, if it was possible. "Privately, please."

Natsumi blinked, took in just how uncomfortable the Hyuuga was, and slowly nodded as her humor was replaced with seriousness. If pressed, she would say the Hyuuga chuunin was _depressed._ There hadn't been anything in the manga she had read about a problem from the Hyuuga clan during this time, so what the hell was going wrong with him?

"I know a good tea house."

"That would be acceptable."

(ooo000ooo)

The batty old lady that ran the only tea house the assassin knew about all but squealed over her 'stoic and handsome companion', her words, before giving over the pot of green tea she had ordered. Natsumi quirked a smile back as she took hold of the hot pot of tea and walked back to where she had seated Hizashi.

Some things she didn't want to ever change.

"So," the misplaced soldier asked as she poured them both a cup before sitting back and looking at the male across the table from her, "what is it?"

The Hyuuga twin glowered at his tea cup, keeping his lips firmly together.

The dual eyed assassin cocked her head to the side, and took a random stab in the dark since this would be a lot easier if he would start talking. "You've found out you prefer men? I don't know if I am the right person to talk about that stuff to… Jiraiya-sensei might know, but I'll give it a shot if you want me too."

"_What!_" The teen across from her jumped in his seat, wide almost-blank looking eyes staring at her in shock before narrowing. "No, Natsumi-san. Are you sure about this place? It is very… exposed."

And, yeah, she could give him that. But on the other hand… "Hizashi-kun, we're right over AnBu headquarters. The little old lady that runs this place wouldn't hear me even if I turned around and shout on top of my lungs _MINATO-KUN LIKES KUSHINA-HIME!"_

When the older woman only notice the two of them looking her way after a few shocked and silent moments, she beamed and waved as she called if they needed something. Natsumi cheerfully waved back with a negative shake of her head, nudging the Hyuuga almost gaping across from her to do the same.

"There are a lot of privacy seals inked into this place, Hizashi-kun. From the storefront to these little tables, done by whatever seal masters there had been around the founding of Konoha and the establishment of the _Ansatsu Senjutsu Tokushu Butai_. One way Silent Sphere Seals, Vision Blur Barriers, that kind of thing. I make no allowances for mistakes if I can, especially if someone _asks_ for my help."

The Hyuuga nodded shakily, wrapping his hands around the tea in front of him as he faced her again. "I have… I am now in an arranged marriage."

When that was all that came out of the teen, Natsumi sighed and sipped her still hot tea. So much for talking. "Do you not want to be? Is she ugly? Are you really sure you don't want a guy?"

Hizashi's face twisted up nearly into a sneer, but looked more like he was feeling ill. Which was impressive, she was sure he had never had that expression on his face before.

"You have to give me a little more to work with. I'm not the mind reader of our group."

"I have no objections to my intended _bride_… but I have no feelings either way for being married at my age."

"So? You're male. If I hadn't caught you and your twin staring at Mikoto-chan's, Kushina-hime's, and_ my own _ass on occasion, I would wonder about your clan." Natsumi smirked at the embarrassed flush now lighting up Hizashi's face. "Yet again, the two of you are male. Human nature to look. It's normal to be less than enthused with being hitched, in my last life I hadn't even thought of it at twenty-seven, much less at fourteen like you are now."

The Hyuuga gave a sigh of his own and lowered his eyes to stare at his tea, cheeks still burning.

"Have you thought of this from her perspective? Who is she, anyways?"

"Hyuuga Misaki, another of the branch families that has very distant ties to my own line. And… I have not."

Natsumi hummed lowly, filling up her cup again. "Well… are you upset at the clan arranging the match for you, or are you just looking for space at the moment?"

Hizashi's jaw worked for a silent moment. "I do not wish for children, Natsumi-chan."

The assassin blinked, taken off guard. She jerked the teapot up before her cup could overflow. "What?"

"Any child of mine will be branded with the Caged Bird Seal after they turn three, like any other branch house member of the Hyuuga clan and treated as such. I do not wish for that to happen."

Ah… oh. Shit. _Neji_. Well… _fuck_.

Hizashi was right in being concerned over the fate of any children he may have, Hyuuga Neji had been a bitter little brat until Naruto had beaten some sense into him during their first chuunin exam. But he had been a damn good jounin, a Hyuuga branch member that learned the main branch's secrets of the Gentle Fist style of taijutsu on his own without guidance from his uncle. So would making the father miserable for the genius talent of the next generation seem like a good idea to anyone saner than she was? Yes? No? So now she had to decide if she let the Hyuuga genius stay with his fate or do something to botch that all up, starting with his currently very unhappy father.

Natsumi placed the pot down. "Are you sure you want to talk about this with me?" Stall, woman! _Buy the time to think with._

"I… I do not know anyone else that may have a suggestion as to what I can do about this. You are both around my own age and older, and someone removed from the bloodline ensuring mindset of a clan raised shinobi." He kept his nearly metallic white eyes on the tea cup he was nearly gripping for dear life on, rattling off more words than the assassin had ever heard out of either Hyuuga twin before. "If what you told us of your life before is as true as Inoichi-san insists, you also made yourself available to others off any kind of record so you may solve some of their personal problems before they started to affect the mission assigned to you. I am asking that of you now."

Well… yet again, _fuck_. Throwing in the towel was sounding like a good option in the face of that bluntly honest little spiel. Neji genius hanging in the balance or not, one of the decisions she had recently was over ensuring their happiness, right?

"Look, Hizashi-kun. You have a few choices at this moment with what you've given me. You can tell your clan no, and deal with the consequences of a pissed off betrothed and clan. You can say yes, and deal with the child thing as it happens. Either way, you should know neither me nor Minato-kun, or many of us in this little group thing we've got, will let you live apart from your clan without _something_ over your head if it comes to that."

"Natsumi-chan, I'm not sure you realize what the Cursed Seal of the Caged Bird is. If I try to go against the clan, they will kill me using it."

The assassin's tea cup cracked down the middle, spilling the tea out onto the table. "I'm not sure you understand, Hizashi. Any kind of change won't happen until someone stands up and says _this is fucked up_. If you're really that scared of dying, why are you a shinobi? If you don't want this seal of your clan's on your children, _say so before you have them_. If they insist you continue your side of the Hyuuga line, refuse. Does your brother even know how you feel about this? I cannot believe your own _twin_ has silently gone along with the things giving you second thoughts without some of his own, the two of you are _not_ that different."

She leaned back and inspected her scalded fingers while the Hyuuga branch member absorbed that. Apparently, she was going to go all out in giving everyone a chance to screw everything up.

But _damn_, getting a Hyuuga to talk about their problems was migraine inducing.

"I… suppose I should be having this conversation with my nii-sama."

"That may be a good idea to start with." Had they ever discussed it before? Hiashi couldn't be completely unaware of his brother's fate in their clan elders' eyes, could he? Maybe without someone to talk to and give him a swift kick in the rear about it, Hizashi would have gone to his doom with the stupid warrior stoicism Hyuugas prided themselves on. "Would you like to do that somewhere we secure with Kushina-hime's privacy seal, or in your clan compound?"

"Neutral ground away from the clan elders would be preferable to broach this topic."

Natsumi nodded as she mopped up her spilt tea. "You'll need ask Kushina-hime for the tag with her seal on it, or I can get it for you before we leave for Suna, and may I suggest the top of the Hokage monument? It has a very nice view."

It was a good thing AnBu maintained a small storage closet filled with replacements for broken tea cups. She was sure that little old lady would be less than amused at the real total of broken cups the shadow ranks of the shinobi corps had gone through over the years. As she replaced her broken cup and poured herself another full of tea, Natsumi started to wonder if Neji would be born now or if that ship had just sailed on by.

\V/

Yin release was the act of only using the spiritual part of chakra, and was the basis of most high ranked medical jutsu and genjutsu. The colors associated with that release were bright green and blue. Yang release was only the physical part, the part required mainly by taijutsu techniques and ninjutsu that also gave life to the elemental properties some jutsu utilized to affect reality. Its colors were generally accepted to be bright red and yellow.

Red physical energy and blue spiritual energy together made purple chakra only when mixed by the inexperienced ninja trying to master either release at the same time balanced chakra leaked into it. More spirit blue than physical red made chakra lilac in color, like more physical red than spirit blue made a maroon color in chakra. It said so in the scroll she read in the Uchiha clan's library when they were studying with Orochimaru on how to counter her jutsu.

_Hello_, obvious conclusion… for those who deal with _both_ Yin and Yang releases or at least looked them up because she was tired of not having a name to whatever was wrong with her. Like, _maybe_, five shinobi in all of Konohagakure dealt solely with either one and could have seen a part of her problem themselves, but not both to clue in on the mixing.

Rock Lee must _only_ be able to use the Yang part of chakra due to his compromised chakra system and as such could not balance his chakra for the life of him. Almost like how all the Yin available to her messed up anything that needed the Yang more to affect reality properly. Maito Gai had to have realized that himself when he took on the shinobi trainee that couldn't use balanced chakra as a student and turned him into one of Konoha's best taijutsu masters. Without that Yin, Natsumi had to wonder if Lee would be able to effortlessly break her jutsu when he would be around her age now, or if it would affect him like the Uchihas with sharingan active at the moment.

But she used _both_ a Yin release and actually balanced chakra at any given moment. That was how she came up with that AnBu assassination technique of hers. Reported to be experienced like a double layered genjutsu, _because it was both a genjutsu and a Yin release illusion at the same time_. Hey, she was almost a genjutsu _master_… if you discounted that she really only had the one jutsu to her name and couldn't get a real one started because of her terrible chakra control. Apparently being completely off one's nut helped one out immensely with the whole imagination based genjutsu branch. Who knew?

Oddly enough, putting it all into words was helping immensely with her concentration. Or maybe it was the bokken her taicho had given her.

Before, using chakra control exercises had been like herding cats. Possible, but it would be unruly because she was trying to find what part of the chakra was wrong and what wasn't at the same time. She had been too caught up in trying to feel something 'off' in the already unusual warm prickle feeling of chakra separating from her system that the extra Yin energy had passed on through her grip because it _hadn't been wrong_. It had only been more than what was usual for others, but normal for her.

Jiraiya had been pleasantly surprised at how much faster she had grasped the Hatake family chakra exercises than the ones they had been doing. Natsumi had to admit she liked no longer being afraid she was going to fall off a tree while walking in circles under a branch.

But keeping her overflowing Yin energy in the hilt while the rest of her chakra coated the wooden blade was helping her out immensely. She didn't want to know how hard it was going to be to try to use either Yang or Yin releases by themselves if it had taken her this long to solve how _not_ to use one. But now all the possibilities of jutsus were open to her, and she was damn near giddy at the thought.

The white haired man clapped his hands together. "Much better, neko-chan! Now…"

At his hastily smothered giggling, Natsumi was feeling less like she had accomplished anything of worth and more like she had just signed herself up for something horribly bad. "Now what?"

"We've got to make all the skills Minato-kun and Inoichi-kun use on reflex now something you reach for by second nature _as well as_ keeping your chakra separated like this." Jiraiya grinned at her, rather evilly in her opinion. "And since we only got a month and a half left to do this in, Sakumo volunteered to help you out while I catch up with the last bits of Minato-kun's fuuinjutsu and Inoichi-kun hits his clan's library like an explosive tag."

Taicho? That didn't sound too bad.

"You're going on a little training trip with him."

Natsumi blinked up at him, still not seeing what the man was so gleeful over.

"For about a month and a half."

"Spit it out, you pervert of an old man."

"Oi! I'm naturally white haired!" The Toad Sage glared down at his unimpressed female student. Admittedly, that he had nothing to say against the first part of her insult kind of took any real force out of his protest. "Fine then. You're going on an _AnBu style_ training run."

Which meant the two of them would run for about a day or two to get out of any area a civilian would wander into, then basically try to kill each other, before running back to the village walls and doing it all over again the next day. Nothing like the threat of your impending doom to spur one on to mastering some kind of skill. "Kind of like I did halfway through the third year of the academy? Okay."

Jiraiya scowled down at her. "It's no fun unless you're scared, Natsumi-chan."

"What do I have to be scared over? It's _taicho_."

The Toad Sage threw his hand up in the air. "What is the world coming to when the genin are no longer scared of the shadow ranks?"

"I _was_ part of the shadow ranks, sensei."

He slapped her upside the head and stormed off with a huff. Natsumi quirked a lopsided smile at his back. "_What time!_"

"_Dawn's break!_"

\V/

Minato paced before the main gates of the village, worried over his yet again missing sempai. One of these days he was going to create a seal so he could track the damn assassin down when he needed to.

She hadn't returned with their sensei nearly a month and a half ago after training, apparently the last day she spent in the village before whatever happened took place, but that hadn't been unusual since she had been working hard on her chakra control and sometimes stayed out late to polish it up with the wooden bokken given to her by sensei's friend. The fact she never opened up her door when Kushina all but broke it down the next day after she didn't show up for team training had been unusual and worrying.

Natsumi had to be the only one to know what was up with the twins lately as well. The normally stoic seeming chuunins of the Hyuuga clan who had some kind of falling out on top of the Hokage monument, only to last all of three hours ignoring each other before reconciling whatever was wrong between them and starting to put their heads together for some reason only known to the three of them. It was confusing the hell out of the rest of them, even Shikaku had asked and the Nara heir normally didn't care if it wasn't tactical or shogi related. Hizashi had only told him to pass on his thanks to his sempai whenever she got back to the village, the only clue given to the rest of them about _what_ the whole thing was over.

Jiraiya had only huffed and told them she was _fine_ when the subject was brought up to him, but the older man had still looked a little worried when he was glancing at the village walls every now and again when he was working on Minato's fuuinjutsu skills.

The misplaced soldier had _also_ been helping him with his fuuinjutsu, because she suggested trying to teach her to ensure he really knew the ninja art. Minato hadn't realized how much that had helped him remember seal configurations and uses until she hadn't been there anymore to nitpick at his lessons. His sempai would never have his technical skills or Kushina's innate knowledge of fuuinjutsu, but she could beat both of them out for quickest comprehension at a glance.

Minato belatedly realized over the last month and a half that Natsumi did a lot of things for their little group, from helping him with his sealing to making sure each of them were doing well even if they missed a bi-monthly meeting. He and Inoichi had problems with team training without her, Kushina was moping around because the assassin was missing some planned trip with her and Mikoto, Shikaku and Fugaku had been annoyed with their sensei for setting up her training trip outside the village since it had kept her from making some shogi game and dropping her out of the research group for the interim, Chouza had been disappointed that the dishes of the misplaced soldier's past life she had been making for him to sample wouldn't be made for the next few months, and only she had known there was something going wrong with the Hyuuga twins. Realizing how much they were used to the ex-AnBu being around made the blond fuuinjutsu user dread the day Natsumi went back to AnBu full time, because that would cut her time down to what it had been like just before the end of the war and he had rarely seen her then.

Now it was the day of their team's leave taking from Konohagakure, or it was supposed to be. Without his sempai they were a man short for the three man cells supposed to be registered at the beginning of the exams. Not to mention if the girl-woman had died on the training trip he had planned for her, Minato was mostly sure his whole group of friends would probably try to lynch his sensei. For that matter, he would help his friends do said lynching.

Jiraiya glanced back at him from his view of the main highway. "Stop panicking. Natsumi-chan will be here."

Inoichi grimaced, tugging at the high ponytail he had recently taken to wearing his hair in. No wonder the assassin did it so often, it was kinda habit forming. "If she's not here in an hour or two, we're going to be late."

"Late for what?" Natsumi chirped as she suddenly slid into formation next to Minato. She had her wooden training sword strapped to her back and was a little mud splashed and ragged around the edges, but seemed to be still all there. She also had a nearly too wide grin on her face, the one that told the blonds that she realized she had been doing something stupid and if you commented on it she was going to make them _hurt_.

Sakumo nodded to the white haired man from behind her. He didn't look much better than the misplaced soldier did. "She's good to go. Had a bit of a sticky situation in the beginning, but nothing else came up."

"You've been checked out by Tsunade-hime and the hospital already?"

"Yes, sensei." The high tail she had swung with the motion of her nod, since most of her hair looked like it had been braided and wrapped around the base of the tail with her hair sticks, leaving only a few feet on the end free. "I've got the medical report from her in my pack."

The Toad Sage nodded seriously as he turned to face his students. "Last bit of orders, Hokage-sama wants the other villages reminded why Konoha ended the war on our terms. Anything and _everything _is allowed against non Konoha or Suna shinobi while the exams are taking place."

Oh, _ouch_. Natsumi had been AnBu once, which meant the assassin had been given leave to ensure they passed by any and all means necessary. The two of them had the same permission, but there was a lot more the ex-AnBu could do than them.

She apparently realized that. The grin she wore now was not a happy one. "Yes, sensei."

(ooo000ooo)

"Another training trip? Why didn't you tell anyone about this one?"

"Blame our pervert of a sensei. _He_ told me dawn's break, Sakumo-taicho showed up not _two hours later_ with AnBu standard field packs so we could go right then."

Minato's irritable look was redirected to the back of the sannin leading them to Wind Country. Jiraiya's shoulders were shaking suspiciously.

Inoichi called over from her kouhai's other side, to the left and behind their sensei. "So do you know what's going on with the Hyuuga twins?"

"Hizashi-kun also wanted me to pass on his thanks, but he didn't say why." Her kouhai added without taking his eyes from their sensei's back.

"Yes? Maybe, if Hizashi-kun took my advice. Ask me when we get back and I can ask them." But if Hizashi was alright enough so neither Minato nor Inoichi jumped her for what she knew, then it could probably wait until they got back to the village for airing what little of the Hyuuga clan dirty laundry she was supposed to know. That whole incident had the possibility to go horribly wrong if neither twin was very careful about it, and her gut was curling not knowing what they had done while she had been training and what they were going to do while they were in Suna.

"Up." The Toad Sage called back to them, and all four of them leapt up onto the sturdy branches hanging overhead to let the civilian caravan pass them by.

Natsumi no longer had to run up a tree trunk to get up to that height or scan ahead by several yards to plot how she was going to run and jump from tree to tree, and she spent the next five minutes they ran in the tree tops blessing her taicho to Suna and back again for sitting her down and explaining how chakra was supposed to work to enhance muscles in shinobi.

Hatake Sakumo had noticed pretty fast that she hadn't been using her chakra to make many of the jumps and runs they had went through the first few days of their training trip, now that he didn't have to worry about two other squad mates and how to complete the AnBu mission they had been assigned. Her old AnBu captain had looked like he wanted to smack either himself or her when he worked out what she had been doing instead, and to be fair Natsumi wanted to run her head into a tree a few times herself after that conversation.

Her shot legs hadn't been the problem with speed she had when she was in AnBu. Ninjas' used chakra to ease the burden of extended running when they didn't have to be stealthy or avoid sensor types, like they did to increase the information the eye could take in or how far they could hear. Since chakra was partially physical, it could keep tendons from snapping, muscles from seizing, and bones from breaking in a taijutsu fight. With the spiritual part, they should be able to perceive more of reality than a normal human. Natsumi… hadn't known that.

Oh, it had been covered in the academy. The last two months of review only touched on chakra based body enhancements and advanced tai- and ninjutsu theory since that kind of knowledge was considered something only a jounin sensei would decide if a genin team would need if they passed whatever test they wanted to try their prospective jounin candidates with. The last two months of the academy that Natsumi hadn't done and the jounin sensei she never got _because she had been in AnBu before her last year in the academy ended_.

She had been working up to realizing that by herself with her Yin release recognition, and the assassination jutsu she had made that stopped her trying any kind of chakra based enhancing on herself, but her thoughts before AnBu had been that muscle control and stamina had been worked up almost to an insane degree and that had hampered her for the last year and a half by keeping her from trying to enhance herself with chakra on her own to ease the process.

Her old taicho had been impressed that she had done all of it before without that general shinobi trick to develop that strength easily and suggested that with her unusual chakra composition it might have been a moot point to know before that, but it didn't make up for the embarrassment of having to have that pointed out to her by her captain just before her chuunin examination.

The one bright side they had figured out about the misstep was that Natsumi had more speed now that it was boosted with chakra than any other genin would probably have and she also had more strength available without chakra than usual for her muscle mass. One of the downsides she noticed was that taicho was never going to let her live that down.

Kami-sama help her if Jiraiya ever learned of it.

But right now it was almost ludicrously easy to keep up with her team. On their C-ranked missions she was always the last one to meet back up with them, and the Toad Sage had probably thought it was some kind of AnBu habit of one last check around before calling it done, but it had really been because she was _that_ slow. Good thing sensei preferred to walk when he could, or that problem of hers would have been exposed in front of her boys a lot sooner than it had.

Now she had to consciously check to make sure she wouldn't overshoot her position at the back of the diamond quick pace formation, the sannin in front because he knew the way and Natsumi in back because she had the experience to be a vicious threat if need be.

\V/

"This sucks." Chouza plucked at the green vest issued to all chuunins that he couldn't wear.

"That we got a field promotion before they made us take the annoying exams for it?" Shikaku gave his best friend a sardonic look from under his tree. "That you can't wear the damn vest because Akimichi's have their own supply to issue standard shinobi gear from?"

The heir to the body size jutsu clan hunched his shoulders as he fiddled with the zipper of the vest three times too small for him. "No, that Natsumi-chan's going to be gone even longer. I was really looking forward to the next cuisine she was going to show me."

Shikaku rolled his eyes, internally swearing at the events of the last two months and that it would take two more for the team Jiraiya-sama lead to return. Chouza was going to sigh about the food he was missing out on until the team was resorted into a chuunin configuration of either three or four teammates and gave him something else to think about, and that had to wait until this next chuunin exam was over and Konoha knew who was going to be promoted and who needed more training. By that point Natsumi would be back in the village anyways, so there wasn't much the Nara heir could do about his friend's troubles.

Damn it all, she hadn't finished teaching him how to play chess and Chinese checkers and they _still_ had a shogi game to finish. Who had given her permission to disappear like that, anyways? Jiraiya-sama? He was going to sic the irritable Kushina on the man for this.

Slumping back on the grass of their empty training grounds, Shikaku scowled up at the sky through the leafy branches overhead. He couldn't even take a nap now because a Hyuuga was coming this way and probably wanted the training field. He agreed with Chouza, this sucked.

"Excuse me, Chouza-san. Shikaku-san, may I have a moment of your time?"

The Nara heir tilted his head to the side just enough to identify who it was talking to them. A dark eyebrow raised up, this was unexpected. "Hizashi-san?"

"With Natsumi-chan out of the village, we need one with some tactical knowledge to assist us with a small… problem."

Shikaku hauled himself upright, sharing a look with a surprised Chouza. _Chan?_ That had never come out of either twin before. And what small problem? The one that cause the falling out between the twins?

"Uh… sure?"

"I happen to know a good tea house. Will you come with me?"

(ooo000ooo)

Shikaku blinked at the twins seated across from him. And just because the situation was _that_ unreal, he did it again.

"So let me get this straight. Natsumi-chan brought you here when you asked for privacy, the _tea house_ over _AnBu headquarters_ that has so many privacy seals inked into it she shouted on top of her lungs and the proprietress didn't even hear a whisper of it. And then once she proved that no one would be able to overhear you two, you told her about some seal used on half your clan, that would kill you if you ever went against said clan, and about their plans for your kids, then she basically told you that someone had to start protesting or it would never change. Is that right?"

Hiashi nodded sharply once.

The Nara heir groaned and slumped over the table, ignoring the teacup at his elbow. Screw Natsumi's sanity, he was now worried for all three of them sitting here. "How has no one in your clan protested this seal before?"

"The branch house members dislike the seal, but with the control the main house has over it no one has dared to raise any concern." Hizashi didn't even had the grace to sound regretful over the impending doom the tactical genius could now feel coming over them.

"Perfect." Knocking his forehead against the rather nice table they were seated at, Shikaku wondered if there was a mini Inoichi hidden away in his clan somewhere. The help in declaring them all insane would be appreciated right about now.

In his personal opinion, the Hyuuga clan was full of control freaks. Even ignoring the twisting in his guts over the idea that one disgruntled clan elder could kill one half of the Hyuuga twins easily, this problem was so full of holes he would of avoided the hell out of it if he could. But he couldn't. Natsumi was a bit of a blunt object when those she cared for were threatened, you just had to look at the damage she had done when some Kumo nin just threatened Kushina and Minato to see the greater degree shown, and killing off every clan elder that might harm a friend of hers was something the genius could easily see her doing even if he couldn't see a way she would survive it. He didn't know if the ex-AnBu assassin had been planning to pull him into this mess before Jiraiya had sent her off for a month and a half long training run, but he was here now and there had to be a way to sneak a solution through before anyone thought to argue about it or Natsumi, who was a good soldier but a _young_ kunoichi assassin, did some lethal premeditated homicide against one of the founding clans of Konohagakure.

On one side of the problem, Shikaku could admit the Cursed Seal of the Caged Bird had its uses. Anyone looking to gain a Hyuuga's byakugan eyes would fail if they targeted a branch member because the seal rendered them useless upon death of the original owner of the eyes. Another side of the problem was blatantly obvious. _It could harm or kill on the whim of the main house members._

So, maybe the Hyuugas needed a new seal… one the main house wouldn't see as much different and one that wouldn't threaten the branch house. And for that, they needed a fuuinjutsu user.

"How against are the two of you of Kushina-chan being involved in this?"

\V/

Jiraiya had noticed the ex-AnBu assassin slowing down bit by bit as the terrain changed. There was still miles to go before they hit the desert, but the trees had fallen away about an hour ago and the grass and underbrush was now scrub land and barren rock so it might have to do with her little phobia of sand. He blew out a sigh and fell back a little ways, waving the two blond boys on when they hesitated and settling into a stride that would keep him with the girl-woman.

Natsumi had a distracted frown on her face, and didn't look like she was dreading the desert. That was his third clue.

"What is it?"

"We're being followed, sensei."

He had already figured that out himself, but it was always nice to get independent confirmation. "How do you know?"

"We're caught in a genjutsu. We passed this place three hours ago and we should have seen the start of the desert by now if your map is right."

Rubbing his eyes like a tired sensei she as the curious student had just asked something of that he needed to explain in detail, he let a little senjutsu spread out and caught the origin shinobi of the genjutsu he could now feel teasing the very outer edge of his normal senses. Kiri, probably. They had the best special ops branch out of all the villages, and this didn't have the feel of anything less than jounin woven casting. Jiraiya would have said senior AnBu level skill if they were Konoha. It was really good, though, like his female student had said the genjutsu user had used an actual place to base the illusion off of and there was very little wrong that hinted at a genjutsu. "Take the boys to the target. You do know where that is, right?"

"Theoretically."

"Good enough. I'll catch up."

"Yes, sensei."

Kami bless AnBu threat protocols. No known names, no hard answers, give nothing away to the enemy they can't get themselves. It was a lot easier to deal with than an actual genin's questions before combat.

(ooo000ooo)

Natsumi sped up a little to draw even with her teammates. "Don't look around, and don't question me yet. Sensei is going to break the genjutsu and we are to run to the target until he catches up with us."

Minato clapped a hand over Inoichi's mouth before he could ask anything, feeling a familiar ice start to climb up his spine. The last time he heard that tone of voice from his sempai had been when Kushina was kidnapped and Natsumi was in AnBu, and had to mean they were in as much danger right now.

Something tickled his developing chakra senses, chakra signals or the genjutsu she spoke of flexing just beyond his sense's reach, before the girl-woman took off like a shot and he followed, pulling Inoichi along with them.

Reality snapped back into place with a lurch and he followed his sempai up a dune of sand that hadn't been there before as sensei turned and took on one of the shinobi trying to sneak up on him.

Natsumi twisted suddenly to evade the kunai held in a kunoichi's hand, gripping her bokken with both hands and bringing it down on the woman's arm with a crack. The figure screamed, clutching a badly broken arm and staggering back a few steps as the three of them dashed off and left her behind to be dealt with by the sannin. Minato may or may not have tossed an exploding tag at her as he passed on by.

It took two hours of running before Jiraiya caught up with them, grimly satisfied. "Nice work, Natsumi-chan!"

But his sempai whirled around and planted herself in the way, neither letting the tired blonds at their teacher nor the teacher to advance to them. "What's my mask's animal?"

Jiraiya looked confused, and Natsumi snapped out a quick hand sign before replacing her hands on the hilt of her wooden sword. "You're not sensei."

"I call you neko-chan because your mask is Panther." Another Toad Sage punched the first before he could say anything else, and the henge dispelled with a small pop.

As the unknown shinobi slumped to the ground, Minato looked between the two of them and the third shinobi face down on the sand. Damn, he hadn't thought of that.

"Just checking, sensei." The ex-AnBu chirped, sliding the bokken back between her travel pack and her back. "Well, that was fun."

Jiraiya shook his head as he crouched down to check the ninja he had punched out. "That really is a nasty jutsu, Natsumi-chan."

"He was only focused on us, letting you have enough lee way to catch up without tipping him off was easy."

The white haired man grunted, stripping the shinobi of any and all tools before tying him up with his own razor wire. If he tried to struggle, he'd probably slice a few things off he'd rather keep attached. "We'll leave them here for Suna's desert patrols. Not sure how Kiri is going to try and explain this, but I wouldn't be surprised if there are no mist genin in the exams."

"Less fun for us maybe, sensei, but less humiliating for them."

Inoichi, a little annoyed by how slow he had been to catch on to the danger sneaking up on them, slung an arm around Natsumi's shoulder and gestured around. "Look at the bright side. Wind Country is here and no panic attacks in sight."

The dual eyed assassin looked around at the dunes around them and rapidly paled.

\V/

Kushina stared at Hizashi's bared forehead. "That's foul."

Shikaku, lying face down on a picnic bench situated on top of the Hokage's monument, snorted at _that_ massive understatement. "That isn't the worst of it."

The red headed Uzumaki made a face. The curse seal she was currently inspecting was pretty bad already. "I'm not sure I want to know."

"We need you to make up something that will keep a Hyuugas' eyes secured in case of death, but lose the controlling aspects of the seal."

Kushina opened her mouth, intending to bite out something scathing about demanding fuuinjutsu from her, but shut it without saying a word. She was still staring at the cursed seal, working out all the twist and turns in it. "Um… yeah. I see something I can work with." If it was for Hizashi-kun and any family he wanted to have, she could work with something like this even if it made her skin crawl. The whole premise behind the cursed seal was absolutely horrific, and since they really were only asking from her for another way for it to work without the pain and death she could see in this one, she would at least try.

"How long, Kushina-san?"

The red head gave Hiashi a distracted look. "Maybe a few weeks? I'll have to test it too, and I have no idea how I'm going to do that yet, dattebane."

"Of course."

The Nara heir sighed and pushed himself upright. "If Kushina-chan's working on the seal now, we need to work out how to sneak it in without alerting or alarming your clan elders when she's done. There really are only two others I can think of who deal with that kind of clan politics on the level we're going to need, and I need to know if either of you object to the Uchihas knowing."

Why the hell was he doing all this, anyways?

\V/

"You have a _girl_ for a combat specialist?" The sneering face was shoved in Natsumi's, and the still pale girl-woman raised one eyebrow at the teen glaring at her. "How _pathetic_."

Minato looked between the Kumo genin and his sempai, wondering just how long she would tolerate the attitude before smashing his face in with the bokken slung onto her back.

The team was currently waiting on the start of the first part of the chuunin exams, some test based around intelligence gathering when being watched. They had just been told that each team started with ten points and you needed at least fifteen to pass, one point was rewarded for each of the ten random riddles you could attempt to answer. Each team also started with three boxes, which each held one clue to a riddle. Attacking another team or individual was grounds of dismissal of your team. If any proctor caught a team with more than three boxes, or with a box clue issued to another team, your team was docked two points. The whole exam would only take one hour.

The blond Yamanaka on their team was already plotting out how to get them pass this test and on to the practical survival portion, after snickering to himself for the first five minutes while the protectors set out boxes at numbered stations.

But the Kumo genin was getting in Natsumi's face about her gender and any physical fighting before any part of the exam was firmly against the rules, not to mention Minato wasn't sure if his sempai would ignore the obvious bait or respond violently.

The ex-AnBu assassin had _not_ been happy after Inoichi pointed out their location in the desert after the incident with Kiri shinobi, her steadily worsening temper was obvious to them if not to anyone else outside their team and the lack of sleep was finally getting to her. But she made it to Suna without snapping at them, even if Jiraiya-sensei had pointed her to a training grounds open to foreign genin for the duration of the chuunin exams as soon as they registered at the village gates. So she was adapting, Inoichi cautiously told his fellow Konoha genin, but she would probably have a bit of a hair trigger while in Suna.

His sempai finally _smiled_, and Minato hid a shudder under an impassive expression. It was the same one she had when Jiraiya-sensei had told them _any and all means._

"Threatened?" She purred as narrowed mismatched ghost eyes, which were no longer strange looking to Konoha shinobi but were now probably creeping out the Kumo genin, all but gleamed with sadistic glee at his paling complexion. "Do you know what I can do with just a bokken in my hands? I can rupture your organs, break bones, and cave in your _tiny little brain_. Why not try surviving, and not pissing off the predators in the room, little _sparrow_."

Minato had the feeling that the Kumo genin teams this idiot was grouped with wasn't going to make it to the second part of the exam. Sempai was going to make _sure_ of it.

Honestly? Minato hadn't forgotten what they had nearly done to Kushina, and he was all for the assassin making their lives hell for a little while.

\V/

Fugaku and Mikoto stared at Hiashi and Hizashi. Shikaku sighed and let his head hit the table they were crowded around.

It was a good thing Natsumi had shown Hizashi this particular tea house before she left Konoha long before her team, or there would be a lot of uncomfortable rumors going around. And as happy as he was to learn the Uchiha clan didn't have the same internal problems the Hyuugas did, this was getting beyond troublesome to deal with if you took into account the fuuinjutsu angle and now the political one that needed to be solved.

"That's… um, right. Okay." The Uchiha girl did a little blinking herself, swallowing uneasily while tightening her grip on her clan heir's arm as she digested the problem posed to them by the twins and the Nara heir. "Why… why not simply suggest it as a response to some threat you've identified, not confronting it like an issue?" Mikoto slowly suggested after another shocked moment of staring. The Uchiha clan had been a little jealous of the Hyuuga clan's lack of internal strife, but if this was how they did it she never wanted the same thing for her clan.

Fugaku rolled his betrothed's initial suggestion around his head before firmly nodding his agreement with her. He could work with that, just like he could deal with advising just these Hyuugas for the moment. This was a very steep problem the two of them were facing and the twins were some of the better opponents to have when sparing, losing either one would see an impact on his own taijutsu development. And yeah, he didn't believe _that_ for a moment even if it was only in his own head, but there were some appearances to keep up with and the near hate-rivalry between their clans was one of them. "Since there are more fuuinjutsu users in this next generation of shinobi, it would be likely if one of them caught sight of the seal to work out how to use it. If you claim to have recognized that may happen with hostile ninja as well, allowing one to take advantage of the seal for their own use or finding a way to circumvent it, then approaching someone with the skills to solve the problem without letting them know of why would have been your next step regardless of your view of this older seal and it's uses."

"And instead of making a confrontation to push the seal through your clan laws, simply slide it through like a simple procedure change any new head of the clan would do when threats are identified. If you do not make it an issue of how the branch members are treated, why should they become concerned over a threat to their control?" Mikoto added, her mind swiftly turning over what little she knew of the Hyuuga clan elders and their views on the right way the world worked. It was shaky, but there was promise in the idea. It would take some careful wording when presented, but unless some Hyuuga elder was smarter than _Nara Shikaku_ then they might get a new seal through Hyuuga clan law without protests being raised until way too late.

Shikaku raised his head just enough to see the twin's considering expressions. Thank _kami-sama_ for Uchiha clan politics.

The irony of that they were using the heir and intended bride to a rival noble clan to solve the problems in another noble clan for its heir and brother was not lost on him, he just didn't care beyond fixing the issue so it would never rise up again.

\V/

"Hey, Inoichi-kun, sempai? Remember what Jiraiya-sensei said just before we left the village? I've got an idea on how to do that."

\V/

Kushina set three seal arrays before them on top of the Sandaime's stone hair spikes.

Shikaku looked sideways at one, still unable to see what worked with what to enable it to do what the Hyuugas wanted. There had been a reason he suggested the Uzumaki preteen's inclusion, after all.

"I _think_ one of these are what you're going to want to go with, dattebane. They still need testing, I can't really tell you how well they will work without that done, but technically these are what you asked for, just worked in three separate sequences. Identifying the death of the sealed, triggering the calcifying of the eyes, and burning out the sockets. Which, by the by, _eww_."

The Hyuuga twins inspected each one in turn, though the Nara heir couldn't say what the two of them were really looking at since he was sure they had just as much fuuinjutsu training as him. That is to say, none at all.

"How does one test a seal like this?" Hiashi tapped one of the seals, the largest of the three laid out for him.

All three seals were designed to destroy human eyes upon the death of the sealed individual through whatever means. Which had to mean three humans were going to have to be sealed and then die in order for them to know if they were going to work as needed and how long it took the seals to take effect. Creepy.

Kushina puffed out her cheeks, crossing her arms over her chest. "Normally? We'd submit these to the research division department that looks at fuuinjutsu. They take care of testing seals like this and instantly lethal jutsus _only_ on war criminals and those convicted of high treason against the village. But that kind of thing hasn't been done in _years_, according to what honorable Mito-baa-sama told me before teaching me fuuinjutsu. And before you ask, no I don't like any of you _that_ much to do it with the penalties doing that yourself carries, dattebane."

Shikaku sighed yet again as the Hyuugas did their silent twin communication thing, wondering exactly how many ninjas did it take to change a shinobi clan. But still, he couldn't blame the Uzumaki preteen in refusing to try testing it out herself.

At least Orochimaru would probably hear them out first before tossing them out the door.

\V/

Jiraiya was trying really hard not to snicker as he stood around with the other jounin sensei in the waiting room Suna prepared just for this kind of occasion, watching the others from Iwa, Ame, and Kumo leave in a huff so the rest of them could get the information on the final part of the chuunin exams being held in a month.

Really he was.

But for some odd reason, both of the Kumo genin teams presented for the chuunin exams had failed the first part of them. There was no sabotaged method identified, each member had failed as a team because they simply didn't get enough points to pass the intelligence portion. That would have been embarrassing enough alone, but now four of the five Iwa genin teams that passed the first test and two out of three of Ame's seemed to have just finally shown up on the edge of Suna's Training Ground Twenty Three, appropriately known in Suna as the Dunes of Time, and had thereby disqualified themselves from the survival portion because they were all out of bounds and missing the deadline for the test by a good forty eight hours. Now all the jounins responsible for the genin teams were clamoring about sabotage, not simply plotting how to make their student's lives hell for embarrassing the hell out of their respective village.

The training grounds that the second part of the chuunin exams were taking place in and had a very specific method you had to travel by to either enter or leave. Kind of like Suna's version of Training Grounds Forty Four, also known as the Forest of Death in Konoha. The largest training grounds in Suna, patrolled normally by the elite of the shinobi available and used for jutsu experimentation when needed. Each genin team was confused when questioned after being rescued, they had been chasing another examinee who had stolen their part of the test and they hadn't known they were getting that close to the edge of the training grounds nor that the time limit had passed them by two days ago. There were so many holes in that it was ridiculous, but all the testimony gathered collaborated on the major points.

Meaning the same team of chuunin hopefuls had to be the ones to ambush and completely disorient the competition before setting them up to be disqualified well after any possible attempt could be made to remain in the exam.

The Suna exam proctors couldn't find any evidence of tampering in either part of the exam besides the obvious one knocking out a good portion of the competition, which had been within the rules of the survival test. The jounin sensei accompanying each team had demanded to see that for themselves and were forced to admit they couldn't find any themselves, despite looking over all of it with a fine toothed comb. Not to say they weren't accusing Suna of underhanded tricks, but still.

The Toad Sage could _see_ Minato's cunning, Inoichi's influence, and Natsumi's little paws all over these series of unfortunate events. What other team had the resources and talents to confuse and disorient other genin teams like this and _get away with it_ under jounin noses?

Officially, the Kumo teams had failed on their own merits and the rest of them had failed due to being unable to break a genjutsu, however well done, placed on them.

Unofficially, Jiraiya was sure the Sandaime Hokage was going to be pleased with his team when he arrived for the final part of the exam, and the Sandaime Kazekage was going to be less annoyed with whoever it was once he was told why when Hiruzen got to Suna. He just wanted to know how his two blond gakis and the kunoichi of odd circumstances had kept the Kumo genin from passing.

\V/

Orochimaru's nearly nonexistent eyebrows rose up when Kushina presented her fuuinjutsu seals to him after the Nara heir gave him a concise summery of what they were for. "So now you want them tested?"

"Yes, Orochimaru-sama. We need to know which will work best for the Hyuugas." The red head nodded as she spoke, her anxiety obvious to them by how hard she was gripping the man's guest chairs in the older man's office.

They had taken the three seals drawn to replace the Cursed Seal of the Cadged Bird to him as one of the lead researchers of R&D, the only one any of them really knew. Nara Shikaku was there as the Hyuuga twin's proxy, they couldn't afford word getting back to their elders about this yet, and Uzumaki Kushina as the fuuinjutsu user consulted for a new seal. They were all hoping the sannin would consent to testing them out without alerting the Hyuuga clan elders about it, or would at least listen to why they wanted them before tossing them out.

The Snake Summoner traced the elegant lines the Uzumaki preteen had drawn with a finger. "I can do that, as long as I can keep the two you are not going to use. The fees for independent testing need to be covered, after all."

"Thank you, Orochimaru-sama." Shikaku's shoulder slumped in relief. He really hadn't counted on the sannin actually _agreeing_ to help them out. Maybe his time of running around like a messenger nin was over?

Fugaku really had been the one to insist on asking the Snake Summoner but he couldn't do it himself because of the public opinion on relations between the two founding noble shinobi clans, and if it ever got out that the Uchiha heir had represented the Hyuuga heir and brother in _anything_ both clans would demand to know why in various tones of pissed off. The tactical genius was pathetically grateful his clan didn't have the members to need internal politics.

"May I give you one word of advice before you leave? Hiruzen-sensei does deal with the Hyuuga clan elders often, he may be able to help you sound out problems on that end before you try to sneak this in."

\V/

Sarutobi Hiruzen warmly smiled down on his student's team of genin. They had performed admirably so far, with knocking out a fair chunk of their competitors without leaving the evidence behind to implicate either Konohagakure or Sunagakure in sabotaging the other villages they had been at war with not too long ago and in reaching the third phase of the chuunin exams without major injuries.

He had to admit it really was expected of this team considering they _should_ have gotten a field promotion already like most of the small group of younger ninjas they socialized with, but the results were satisfying even if they were carried out by a little overqualified shinobi to begin with. There had been some nitpickers in the lower ranks who didn't know Mesuji Natsumi had been in AnBu before being placed on the Toad Sage's team, and so the team of supposed genin had to go through the motions to get their rightful ranks awarded them since _technically_ one of them didn't have the genin team experience needed.

There also were the signs that this team hadn't been content just to wait for the third phase to knock the rest of the competition out, Namikaze Minato's fingers were ink stained, Yamanaka Inoichi had the slightly too wide gaze that marked his clan's jutsu use, and Mesuji Natsumi had to bandage her fingers before this meeting with their village's kage.

There was also a unfortunate rumor the Hokage had heard on his way in to meet the two Konoha teams to attempt the Suna chuunin exams, one about the last Iwa genin team and a run in with Suna's version of AnBu.

Hiruzen exchanged the formal greetings between jounin and kage with Jiraiya and Tokjin Karsu before heading to his meeting with the Kazekage. He figured he had better clear up some interesting facts before the other kage became paranoid.

He also had some curious news to give his student when they had the time.

(ooo000ooo)

"_They_ did _what?_"

Jiraiya attempted to explain to Natsumi again what had occurred in Konoha while they had been gone from the village, but he had to stutter it out between gales of laughter that he suppressed when he had heard the news first from Sarutobi.

Apparently, after chatting to her and not too long after a fight with his own twin, Hizashi took the idea of getting help and talked to Shikaku, who asked Kushina and the Uchiha couple for more assistance. Then the Nara heir and the Uzumaki princess took that help to Orochimaru on Fugaku's insistence, and finally the sannin told them to take all of it to the Hokage himself for even more help. The misplaced soldier had to admit the results of it all was a hell of a lot better than what she had been planning to do once she was back in Konoha, she really _had_ hoped neither twin were very attached to their clan elders, but it was still the Snake Summoner that her head tripped over first before trying to understand what had gone on.

What did Orochimaru gain from this to ensure his help? From a few months of dealing with him she knew he was a quid pro quo kind of ninja, like most shinobi ended up being with trading their skills and knowledge before long. And she knew the man himself was somewhat decent right now if you tilted your head to the side and squinted, but not in any twisted reality could Natsumi see him becoming a civil right activist or being concerned with the quality of life of a clan he had nothing to do with. He was more likely to simply watch to see how it would turn out, taking careful notes of who screwed up what.

On another matter entirely, why hadn't this all been done in the first place if the Caged Bird Seal was so easy to replace with another?

Well, she couldn't argue with results even if she was near panicking on the involvement of the Snake Summoner. Hiashi had apparently snuck the new law of the Flight of the Phoenix Seal Kushina made into his clan laws already when he formally took command of the Hyuuga clan two weeks ago on his fifteenth birthday, as per the prior agreement of the elders who had held the reins of the noble clan after the twin's father's death nearly ten years before. The switch was done and over with, Hizashi's concerns were now groundless in the seal aspect, and it was likely Neji would still be born since the betrothal contract he was in was going to be kept and held too.

Officially the story was that with fuuinjutsu gaining popularity as a ninja art within Konohagakure, _Hiashi_ became concerned that someone outside the village might have enough knowledge of seal work to tamper with the old seal used by the Hyuuga clan. He took his concern and gave them in a roundabout manner to Uzumaki Kushina, who had admitted to understanding how the 'pre-Konoha' clan seal worked after a few hours of study. Seeing as someone in Konoha could possibly unravel the seal to support any suspicion of his that someone outside of the village being able to do the same, Hiashi then commissioned a seal similar but more complicated to work out from the only fuuinjutsu user in Konoha at the time. When it was completed, he then took the problem and solution to his clan upon the confirmation of his position as clan head to show the elders he would be a good leader when complications arose in the future.

Unofficially, Hiashi had all but rewritten his clan's laws about seals and branch members because Hizashi had not wanted that kind of life for his future children.

Once someone of the main branch house found out the new seal didn't work like the old Cursed Seal of the Caged Bird shit was going to hit the fan, but it would be far too late to change it back without tempting the branch families into revolting now they couldn't be controlled with the threat of pain and death of their children. The story they would stick to then would be that Hiashi couldn't force the Uzumaki preteen into including that without raising suspicion so it had been left out. But that would be at least three or more years down the road, long enough to subtly change a few of the misconceptions held by the worst of the clan elders.

She still couldn't understand why this hadn't happened in the manga she had read. It had been such a complicated problem by the time Hinata and Neji had been full members of each side of their clan, hell Neji had it as one of the major hurdles of his life in accepting that not everything was fate even if his birth seemed that way, that Natsumi was almost completely sure it would take some bloodletting and tears before it was solved in any kind of final manner.

So again, _what the hell had happened?_

Minato poked her in the side after another few moments of her not reacting in any way to the news. "Sempai? Are you alright?"

"I'm just shocked I didn't need to lop anyone's head off."

Inoichi shot her a look, half worried and half amused. "I hope your joking."

"Of course I'm joking. But seriously, I'm surprised it was so easy."

Jiraiya snorted as he pulled himself upright by the edge of one of the three beds in the room he was sharing with his male students while they were in Suna. "According to Hiruzen-sensei, it wasn't so easy. That Nara gaki had to run around Konoha like a headless chicken ensuring everything was getting done, because neither of the Hyuugas could be seen together alone with Kushina-chan or the Uchiha brats without someone getting suspicious of why."

Natsumi blew out a breath and finally started snickering like she wanted to at how neatly the wool had been pulled over the 'all seeing' eyes of the Hyuuga clan elders. Even with unknown consequences she could almost feel bugging her, she had to admit it had been pretty awesome of their friends to pull together like that.

\V/

Minato had drawn the first match of the final tournament, against one of the remaining Ame genins. He was a little disappointed that the match had been nowhere near as interesting as sparring with any of the chuunins of the noble clans of Konoha he knew. Natsumi's first match had been similarly uninteresting, for _some_ 'unknown' reason the other Ame genin she drew to fight had ran himself into a wall and knocked himself out not three minutes into the bout.

Now watching Inoichi lead his opponent around by the nose, apparently one of the lesser trained Suna genins, he started to plan for his next match after the mandatory fifteen minute break.

It was going to be a lot harder, because he was up against his sempai at the start of the second round.

All the spars they had before would give him a working knowledge of how she fought, but with her new control over her chakra there would be parts of her fighting style he wouldn't know. Jiraiya-sensei had also kept them apart for the month between the second and third stage of the exams, telling each of them they would need some tricks up their sleeves if they faced each other in the end. And despite knowing she could use the bokken she still had with her, he didn't know how much skill she had with it since she spent a month and a half under the shinobi she called taicho relearning a lot of ninja skills.

He knew seals probably wouldn't work without one hell of a distraction, she would probably identify them before he could use them without one. Straight up taijutsu wouldn't work either, she had done most of the work in helping him develop his style and usually kept the upper hand unless she gave him enough time to outlast her in extended bouts. Natsumi did have a bit of a weakness in ninjutsu, she hadn't had control over her stubborn chakra until just recently. The only problem with that was all the ninjutsu he knew she had watched him learn to use.

But she had also been AnBu, and had probably worked out some methods to avoiding jutsus she couldn't use when used against her. And she had an entire previous life of combat experience to draw from.

So was he going to go full out against his sempai and try for a win, or try to draw with her?

(ooo000ooo)

"Oh, ouch." Jiraiya of the Sannin commented from next to the Hokage.

"Is there something wrong, Jiraiya-sama?" The Kazekage asked politely from the Fire Shadow's other side.

"Naw, not really Kazekage-sama." The Toad Sage rubbed the underside of his jaw in a transparent attempt to hide his amusement. "It's just this next match has sempai verses kouhai."

"Mesuji-chan and Namikaze-kun?" Sarutobi scanned the lineup of matches posted and updated by a few Suna shinobi in the kage box. "Well, how interesting."

"Are you sure about that? Neither had a match that lasted very long before this." Hanzo the Salamander grumped from the other side of the box. He was in a foul mood since his village's poor showing in the exams and form having to respect the traditional non-hostility pact in effect for the chuunin selections. Not to mention one of the three upstart shinobi he had faced in the end of the Second War was sitting in the same room like he had the right to. He couldn't wait to get out of the desert and back to Amegakure.

Jiraiya suppressed his snicker, greatly enjoying the turn of fortune and station in his recent fame. Since a village was considered neutral territory when chuunin exams were held, _how else would a village keep good tabs on the rising skills of other villages' ninjas without losing a large amount of spies_, any hostile act against the representatives of another village was seen as both an act of war against the rest of the great five shinobi nations and an estimate to civilian patrons of how loyal a nation was to anything like contracts and tradition. Even with that behind him, Jiraiya wouldn't have been invited to the kage's box to see how his students would do as a simple jounin sensei if one kage protested, it was only the fact he was a student of another kage and the title of _Densetsu_ _no Sannin_ the kage of Ame had unwittingly given his team that had prompted the invitation despite any protests raised by someone that only had a reputation of being a kage.

If Hanzo attacked him, even the venerable Tsuchikage Ooniki seated next to his disgruntled ally would be expected to help kill him.

"My team is a bit overqualified for chuunin exams, Hanzo-sama. But poor Natsumi-chan didn't have the time on the team necessary for a field promotion, so they all have to take the exams to get their rightful ranks."

It wasn't a claim of responsibility to the sabotage the other three villages had recently experienced, but it was close enough that all four of the men there in the box understood exactly what had gone on. Bored shinobi tasked to things that they felt were beneath them did worse than that all the time. The Kazekage and Hokage smirked, the other two could only glower.

The only thought in the sannin's head as he turned to watch how this was going to play out, was that it was a good thing he had forbidden any kinjutsu from being used more than once in public bouts or someone would catch on to the rash of bad luck plaguing Kumo, Ame, and Iwa was coming from his female student.

(ooo000ooo)

Natsumi smirked at her poor little kouhai. He looked a bit torn about this.

Well, to be bluntly honest, she wasn't. She wanted to know _exactly_ how good Minato was. Seriously. How often did you have the opportunity to match wits with a legend before he became that legend?

As the two of them waited out the Suna tokubetsu jounin drone out the rules, Natsumi gripped the hilt of her bokken and slid her feet further apart. Minato apparently took his cue from that, because his trouble expression faded behind an impassive one and he shifted into the ready stance of Konoha's academy standard katas.

The two of them only hesitated a moment, just long enough for the tokubetsu jounin to get out of the way, before Natsumi darted to her kouhai's right side and attempted to cave in his ribs for a quick technical knock-out. Can't breathe, can't fight.

But Minato bent backwards under that swing, slapping a shock tag to her hands gripping the wooden hilt as he did so, correctly guessing that if he set it on fire his sempai was going to do the same to him later. But that forced the ex-AnBu in giving up the bokken for the time being, the tag would eventually run out of power if she read it right, and the girl-woman let go far enough into the swing that it would only hit dirt near about where the Suna nin was. The tag was ripped off her when she let go of the hilt, and she had to back flip out of the range of the blond's off hand uppercut to her jaw.

Minato took advantage of the space to fling out a double hand of shuriken, which Natsumi fouled with a few kunai of her own. She knew that sleight of hand just as well as him, the Uchihas had a bad habit of relying on that hidden wire trick a lot to guide and bend katon jutsus. Her kouhai had just used his fuuton chakra to sharpen them, so they cut a wide swath in the sand around her when they hit.

So intent on the wind boosted shuriken she missed the three senbon he also threw, and they hit in her right bicep.

Senbon were a funny kind of weapon used mainly by kunoichi. They didn't do much damage by themselves unless you had the kind of accuracy she did, but the effects of leaving them in was the point most ninja ignored since they weren't the slicing kind of weapon. Senbon were basically long shafts of metal that pinned things in place, and left in a major muscle they could tear one apart, if they didn't slit skin first and you didn't stop using the limb.

Taking the few moments to rip them out cost her time her kouhai used to get in range and position himself. Off step, his taijutsu was a lot harder to counter than normal.

In a straight up taijutsu spar, the winner between them really was the one that could take advantage first.

Kicking out a foot to gain her some space, Natsumi darted back for her bokken. She had planned on using that as a prop for any taijutsu she couldn't last against and her stamina wasn't anywhere near the level her kouhai had.

Gripping the hilt, she only had a moment for her eyes to widen as the second seal placed under the first activated. Paralyzed, she could only move her jaw to speak. "Well… damn."

Minato hadn't escaped without a scratch, he was breathing hard and wiped off the blood drawn by one of her stray kunai. "Give?"

"Hell no, kouhai."

The thing she had learned about paralyzing tags was that they only bound the Yang side of a target's chakra in place. Which was normally good enough, a genin wouldn't have the experience working with separate Yin or Yang releases to work leverage within their chakra to escape one by withdrawing the Yang and pushing the Yin to the surface. But… she wasn't a normal genin, and she didn't even have to work a Yang release to wiggle out of it.

When she released the hilt of her bokken, Minato's eyes were about the size of saucers. "Let's try that again, shall we?"

(ooo000ooo)

Shit, shit, _shit_, he hadn't known that was _possible_ at their level.

When this was all over, he was sitting down his sempai and getting _how_ the hell she had done that trick out of her.

Right now he had to- _duck!_

Dodging the shin on collision course with his head, Minato placed both hands on the sandy ground and tried to sweep his sempai off her remaining foot. She just did that axle kick thing of hers of spinning around in midair and landed facing him in a crouch.

Ah… _fuck_.

He would slowly gain ground in their taijutsu exchange, he was both more healthy and bigger than she was, but Natsumi wasn't a slouch on the tricky side. She had taken a moment to realize he used the senbon tricks she had taught him on her, but now that his second seal card had been played and brushed off Minato didn't know how else to pull a win against the dual eyed assassin except for continuing to outlast her and somehow avoiding the AnBu tricks she knew to end the match in her favor.

"Suiton: _Mizuappa!_"

Minato shaped basic fuuton chakra blades around his arms to cut the water bullets without letting them impact full strength and break something he would need later. The force behind that jutsu would leave some bruises where the water sprayed when the suiton hit fuuton, but it was better than a broken bones or even a concussion. He guessed that answered the question if his sempai could now use ninjutsu, and why she had been taking frequent sips out of her canteen while they waited for this match to be called. Good thing she only had water as her element, there wasn't much of that in the desert and the dual eyed girl-woman probably couldn't put that much force behind another one if she could pull it off.

How did one outsmart an AnBu that found a way to use a basic but fully effective _suiton_ jutsu in the _desert_ and a way past his _best_ seal? He dearly, almost desperately, wanted to do that outsmarting since it wasn't likely he could win now without some miracle. Because it would be like showing the assassin that her hard work on tutoring him was paying off. She hadn't chose any of the kunoichi that tried to copy her to take on and mentor, she had picked _him_. Aside any theory by sensei about asking being the reason she helped him, he still wanted to _prove_ to her that she had been right to pick him and not anyone else.

Wait a tick, why hadn't she gone back for her bokken and ripped the fuuinjutsu paper off it? If she could _only_ break out of a paralyzing tag… maybe it would still affect her? Did she have the chakra to get out of one again after her jutsu or not?

He hid the act of grabbing another prepared sealing tag by throwing more shuriken at her, the one throwing weapon she didn't use. She claimed it was just too weird, even if Minato privately thought senbon were stranger.

Instead of simply fouling them up again with throwing weapons of her own, Natsumi gripped a kunai infused with her chakra to knock them out of her way as she closed in on him.

He caught her next left handed punch aimed at his jaw with the seal hidden in his hand.

(ooo000ooo)

"I'm proud of you. That was _brilliant_."

"I was lucky, sempai. I couldn't have planned that."

"Luck is just as much a part of a fight as skill, kouhai."

\V/

Jiraiya was practically beaming at them. Natsumi thought it was a little ridiculous of the man to be proud of _her_ since she really hadn't been his student for very long. It had only been half a year since she joined the team.

But all three of them, and two of the other Konoha genin team, had made chuunin.

Minato looked almost like he had beaten sensei or Sarutobi-sama in a fight, because he was nearly in so much glee of his promotion that his attention was wandering easily into something occupying his head. Inoichi was just smirking, and the other two thirds of the team that came to Suna as well and were traveling back to Konoha with them were only a little less obvious of their pride in the promotion.

She had to admit she was a little proud of herself too, Hokage-sama himself had congratulated her in her hard work in chakra control paying off. He was impressed with her in being able to use a C-ranked suiton jutsu so easily in her last fight in the third stage, since he knew she couldn't at all nearly four months ago. How cool was _that?_

Natsumi hummed a little to herself and turned her attention to the sands passing them by as they walked back to Konoha.

It wasn't that it was easier to separate the death of her previous life to this desert that let her ignore the fact she was in a desert to begin with, it was that she admittedly had fun screwing up the chances of other villages for the promotions she and some of the other Suna and Konoha genin got. Well, besides the last Konoha genin. Who was all but pouting just because his match ups in the end hadn't been long enough for a good judgment of his skills before being knocked silly by her kouhai in the semifinals.

But Inoichi was sort of right in that associating something other than death with the desert had helped her out a lot.

Natsumi _knew_ she hadn't been much of a traveling companion on their way out to Suna, and right after they had gotten there she had another series of nightmares of how she had died before. Frustrated and exhausted, it wasn't until that Kumo genin had gotten in her face that she found an acceptable, for her, outlet for her ill humor.

Minato had probably noticed the lessening amount of frustration in her when she had caused both Kumo teams to fail with her kinjutsu, and had found another outlet during the second portion using the orders the Sandaime probably intended for the final tournament. He had them disarm and delay all but one team out of Iwa and Ame, stripping them of their part of the third of the map they were supposed to be completing and distributing it out to any other Suna and Konoha genins they came across by the assassin's more dubious skill set. With Inoichi planting a different memory of the incident and a genjutsu set to lead them out after they woke, Minato had placed a timed sleep tag on each of them. Then they got the hell out of dodge before anyone could catch them doing it. Natsumi had started laughing not too long after that, between being confirmed to pass the second test and telling sensei what had gone on during the testing.

She did have to wonder if that made her sadistic. Or a good ninja. Hey, _orders_.

Yeah, she was going to stick to that excuse. Orders.

\V/

A week after the newest promoted chuunins returned to Konoha, Natsumi was finally confronted with what she wanted to do now she had her promotion.

The ex-AnBu assassin was of the opinion it was vastly evil of her sensei to spring that on them during the next bi-monthly meeting. This time Senju Tsunade had hosted them all in her clan compound due to inclement weather, only minimally griping about hospital work keeping her busy while everyone else was off having fun without her, with catering supplied by the Akimichi clan because Chouza had been that happy everyone was finally home. But at the moment all attention was on her, everyone wanting to know if she was going back to the shadow ranks and disappearing again or staying chuunin out in the visible ranks with the rest of them.

Even Sarutobi Hiruzen didn't even blink when his student brought up returning to AnBu to his own student during the meeting, having realized that all of the chuunins gathered had already figured out the dual eyed girl had been part of that division before, between disappearing from their academy days and her showing up again as one of the Toad Sage's students half a year later. There were even a few pithy glares being tossed Sakumo's way because he had been her captain while in AnBu, obviously when you considered what Natsumi called him in casual conversation, and not all from the younger generation sitting in a loose circle in Tsunade's sitting room. Orochimaru just rolled his eyes over the glaring blonde sannin's head at the last Hatake.

One of the hazards of having halfway decent shinobi around was their incessant curiosity over anything and everything under the sun, and absolutely everything not normally visible to the casual observer. It was incredibly difficult to keep any kind of secret out in the open when you trained individuals in ferreting them out in the name of ensuring village security. Especially if said secret was about the period of time a mutual friend was missing for. Finding out some shinobi was either AnBu or a Hunter-nin wasn't officially punishable, because usually you found out trying to ensure ninja A was actually ninja A and not ninja B who was really an infiltrator from another village, but it was still a nasty shock if you were not expecting it.

It was also ridiculously easy to spot those that belonged to the shadow ranks of the shinobi corps if you knew how to do it. You just had to watch the way they moved and pick out those who had the same attention grabbing hair color or style, curious habits, short build, limp, or body scar as the AnBu agent whatever. Or by noticing the silent conversations that go on between masked members and realizing you've seen that hand sign used before by such and such ninja the last time you ran a mission with them. Or by finding a rather stark black AnBu tattoo somewhere on their arms after a spar, training session, or patching injuries up on one. They were also the ones that couldn't give the real reason for missing birthdays, holidays, or some planned event, claiming a mission you'd never hear about because saying _I'm really sorry I wasn't here but this one guy had to die because we were being paid a lot to do it for this fat, jealous, and corrupt merchant in Lightning Country_ wouldn't really go down well at all.

The only times being identified was punishable to an AnBu or Hunter-nin, though it was still highly discouraged to voluntarily reveal your actual line of work to anyone under chuunin rank and it was really bad to get identified by genins, was if someone _outside_ the village managed to put the right name to the animal mask.

Although it was accepted practice to generally ignore that part of their lives if you knew any AnBu or Hunter-nins when they were unmasked; retired from service, benched for medical or personal reasons, or simply off-duty at the time; there were some situations where discussing it was allowed or even encouraged. One, when you had some kind of problem or issue with established procedure and needed the advice of an older teacher; or two, when being asked if you wanted to continue in either branch of the black ops divisions by a superior.

"I _would_ like to be reinstated-"

"_NO!_"

Natsumi blinked at the uproar that came out of not only her old genin team, but Kushina and a fair few of the clan shinobi gathered around. Trying to listen to most of it was giving her a headache.

Jiraiya silenced them all with a _look_, surprising in itself because the sannin really was kind of a perverted jokester at heart and only occasionally got serious about anything. "Continue, Natsumi-chan."

"I would like to be reinstated as an available assassin if needed, but I want to complete my kenjutsu apprenticeship with taicho before I consider going back full time." _Like in two years when the Third Great Shinobi War starts, and after I try to save taicho's life_.

The Toad Sage nodded his shaggy white head, probably having expected that from her. "You know your taicho's not going back for a good while, right?"

"Yeah, he's got his new lady love now." Natsumi faked sniffing back tears. "He's leaving me for another woman, sensei!"

Sakumo, who had been sitting some ways behind her to place her between him and the glaring, all but choked on air. "How do you _know_ that? And _what the hell?_"

Jiraiya threw a smirk at the silver haired man even as he scrambled out of Tsunade's reach. "Your problem now, old friend!"

The assassin smirked back at her spluttering taicho, who would always be her taicho. On the bench for the moment or not.

(ooo000ooo)

Minato set the last box of his things from his old genin apartment down in his new chuunin apartment harder than a box of inanimate objects deserved. Natsumi went out on a deductive twig and sighed. "He gave you enough to work through that you'll probably still be working on it when he gets back."

"Yeah, but… Jiraiya-sensei is still going to be more outside the village than in for the next few_ years_, sempai." Her blond kouhai sighed himself, slumping down onto the couch in the main room that the chuunin apartments had that the genin apartments didn't. "I was kinda expecting…"

"… it to be like how it was when I joined the team? A little less of me and Inoichi-kun, but all of us there in some way anyways?" The misplaced soldier stopped sorting the other chuunin's stuff out so he could put it away later, no real interest in sorting his clothing any more than she did usually when they switched doing mission generated laundry so someone didn't have to always do it, sitting down on Minato's _actual bed_ in what they were assuming was the bedroom and not the closet because of the little clue of the _bed_.

The best part of being promoted so far? _Definitely the raised bed_. Screw her reinstatement to the AnBu bench and the higher paying missions available, her nearly numb ass was loving the switch of traditional floor futons to supported western styled beds even when _not_ on missions and rooming in an inn for the night. Damn it all, even the _AnBu on-duty barracks_ had cot-bed thingy types of cushioning for the rear.

The apartments issued to independent chuunin were not much bigger than ones for genin without alternative means, but they had the same minimalist layout. There was a main room where Minato was, it contained a bit more of a kitchen and dining room with the living room the misplaced soldier was mostly sure it was used for. Or maybe it was a library/study thing? There was an _actual_ shower stall crowded in next to the toilet in the bathroom instead of the bucket powered shower/drain thing they had before.

And the bedroom had a _bed_ in it, had that been mentioned yet?

"Well, yeah."

Her blond kouhai was not that far from her, cramped as the apartment was. From her to the blond the assassin would estimate about six or seven feet.

"Wanna screw off unpacking for the rest of the day and go do something more fun?"

Minato pushed himself up slightly to check how evil his sempai's smirk was. "Go stalk your old taicho so you can laugh at him some more for dating some civilian lady?"

"… You suggested it, not me."


	4. Of Kenjutsu and Adaptation

**Disclaimer : **Why do I still have this part? I don't even own my own bed, why would you think I own Naruto?

**Rating** : T at least for bad language and some violence at the moment. Will be starting to climb in violent content and various types of naughtiness from here on out, so watch for the M rating popping up.

**Author's Note : **So this part is covering one year of the time between the Second and Third Great Shinobi Wars now that my SI, who really isn't an SI but an OC cause kami-sama _knows_ she's better (or worse) than me, is on her way to being a great kunoichi assassin if not even a remotely _sane_ individual. There is an ass load of history, facts of life in a ninja village, some speculation on cannon events that may or may not be true, and psychology knowledge covered by this, but we're setting up the mind sets and situations and getting that shit out of the way for the epic-ness that is the main part of this story to happen the part after next. Supposedly. Don't worry, Natsumi's still cracking perverted jokes at other peoples' expenses and giggling hysterically over their reactions at the same time as meddling in the cannon part of the previous storyline to knock it even further off track. For those of you who want to know about Sakumo's eventual fate... it's in the next one. I think. Which might be delayed in posting because I'm moving again, and I won't know where and when exactly until a week from now. Joy.

Is there anyone else having problems with Outlook? Completely random, I know, but I can't load word files to send chapters to my beta.

**monophonic** **: **She's rather proud of herself too. There is some screwing around cannon in this chapter, but I don't think anything else that major is kicked in and beaten with a rubber chicken for another part or so.

**cormalin **: Err... damn. Thanks though. That would explain why I couldn't find it. Hanzo's a beast either way, yeah?

**KleverKilva** : I have no plans _not_ to finish this. I kinda want it done and complete even if it goes past my initial five parts, myself. There are not enough finished ones out there.

**Mybffisazombie** : Since you are the only one that expressed an opinion either way, screwing the pairings it is. Still was going to happen, but still. And though this part is sadly lacking much of the Toad Sage, I think you'll still like it.

**DWM** and **Vaughn Tyler** : Five minutes of fame, just for leaving something for me. Welcome to the nut-job cheering squad.

* * *

**Part Four: Of Kenjutsu and Adaptation**

_Human nature would hold whoever could kill the other had the right morals to enforce their view above others, end of story. Examples would be the Holy Crusades, the Spanish Inquisition, Witch Hunts, the World Wars, ect... _

_Modern society holds that debate and reasonable arguments will prove a set of morals right above another's... eventually. Subject to change on the whims of popular view when 'new' evidence brought to light._

_... I think we may be royally screwed._

* * *

Her taicho had knocked up his girlfriend when she had been gone from the village and taking the chuunin exams. Hatake Kakashi was a whoops baby.

Natsumi fell to her knees, clutching her aching ribs and trying to breathe between gales of laughter that _would not stop_. She dimly realized that was _exactly_ why her kenjutsu master had told her to put the bokken down before he told her his news.

Sakumo rolled his eyes at her. "Yeah, yeah. Gaki. Laugh it up, I see now just how much you care for me." The silver haired shinobi rubbed his face as his apprentice tried to recover from that news being dropped on her. He wasn't really all that annoyed with either the young assassin or the situation, as the Hatake clan did have to be continued sometime, but it was still kind of embarrassing to be forced to admit to your student that you got your girlfriend pregnant and would be juggling a newborn while he taught her in half a year or so.

"Sorry, t-taicho. Reall-ly." The assassin gasped between giggles, peering up at him through watering eyes and unable to do anything with the smirk on her face that gave the lie of her apology away. "Just… I-I would've expected that-t from sensei, not y-you."

The only living member of the Hatake clan, for the moment, groaned in acute pain as he was reminded of his best friend and what he was likely to do with that information. He joined her on the ground as he let his knees give out and landed in a heap on the floor of his family dojo. "He's never going to let me live this down."

The civilian lady Sakumo was seeing was pretty nice, really. Sweet tempered and a girl-next-door kind of beauty, Yamamoto Eri worked in the marketplace near the clan compound district. That was how her old AnBu captain had met her. Natsumi had finally met her face to face not too long ago, after the older looking man had caught her out following them for a laugh. Eri had just laughed herself at the kunoichi after the relation between the two ninja had been cleared up and the reason for the stalking given, handing the misplaced soldier an apple from the basket she had been holding her groceries in.

Natsumi had flat out ignored Minato's snickering later when she told him why she was bugging him so early that day and what had been up with the fruit. Eri was awesome.

She was typical of a civilian of Konohagakure too, which is to say a bit more forthright than anyone that lived outside the village gates. Having no qualm in pointing out to the killer that lived down the road from them that they're tracking blood all over the place, would they please clean it up before anyone slipped?

The civilians of Konoha had the right to be that brash, they frequently dealt with people that could set fire to their homes with an exhale and pin a fly to a wall with a sharp piece of metal you wouldn't ever spot on one. They also married shinobi and into ninja clans, though that was rare in the noble clans, and had friends, husbands, and wives that were missing a good number of days out of the year. They ignored it if you entered your apartment or home in the dead of night and when the blood trail lead up to and into your open window, simply putting the keys, which only the civilians ever got around to using, you gave them so they could water your plants and care for your pets under the doormat so you could get it back later when you finally woke up.

A good thing shinobi only trapped the rooms they didn't normally keep weapons on them in unless they were beyond paranoid, just the bathroom and the bedroom were generally lethal if you tried to waltz straight into one.

But the civilians of Konoha were treated better than the civilians in any of the other great shinobi nations, and they knew it. An entire faction of one of the founding noble shinobi clans was tasked with keeping them safe from both outside threats and the ninja that walked the streets with them, so that fact of life was hard to deny. A lot better than Kumo, from what little she saw of it that one time her AnBu squad had a target in the Village Hidden in the Clouds itself.

It was also kind of hard not to get confidant when you knew the shinobi you were talking to in the first place. He would be that boy from the family across the street that used to play with you or your own children, or that girl who would always greet you nicely when on her way to the academy. There also were the legions of D-rank missions that were done every day for them.

It was common for civilians to take a small amount of money and an issue they had or a request to the Genin Corps, which dealt with all D-ranked missions within the village if the missions were not needed by the jounin sensei currently teaching new teams of jounin candidates. The Genin Corps, made up of all the ninjas who would probably never see combat missions or anything outside of Fire Country's boarders and had next to no jutsus above D to use themselves, were really what the civilians were used to dealing with. They made up about forty to sixty percent of the shinobi ranks of Konohagakure at any given time, ninjas that weren't expected to stay in the corps for any more than five to ten years before retiring to raise the next generation. They were the messenger ninja you saw darting from roof to roof, the ones that cleared up the training fields so any stray weapons, traps, or sealing tags wouldn't kill someone, and the ones that continued to complete the D-ranks so the next group of jounin candidate genin could take them when it was their turn.

D-rank missions were also the bane of all jounin sensei, because of the mind numbing, boring, and tedious work of keeping three preteen genins on task and not goofing off when given a mission to weed a garden or fetch some elder's groceries for them. They were the missions used to get new ninjas used to reaching for their chakra to ease more strength out of muscles or speed to their feet, to give them skills they might need on later missions to support themselves when undercover, to build teamwork when one genin was better at something than another, and to ensure the civilians wouldn't shy away from these new assassins and killers that could destroy a good portion of the village on a whim, since civilians had known said murderers when they had been young enough not to have all that blood on their hands.

Bingo books weren't just for shinobi, after all. Civilians had to know who to avoid the hell out of when outside the walls too… and whose name they could try to use to scare off bandits.

But it was social behavioral control at its finest. The civilians that saw you grow up and you spoke to everyday _expected_ you to act like a proper human being regardless of what you did outside the walls, so the shinobi _tried_ to act like proper human beings when inside the great wall that shielded the village. There always would be those few that couldn't, Maito Gai was one name that came to her mind, but it would usually be excused because they came off to civilians like any batty eccentric would. Nutty but still nice, at least to their comrades in arms and inside the village.

Natsumi breathed deeply a few times, trying to get that sore feeling of laughing too hard out of her ribs. Since they were cracked anyways from their last training session, she probably shouldn't have let herself laugh so much. Tsunade was going to throw a fit at her the next time she saw the Slug Princess. "Propose? There really isn't much else I can think of."

"I guessed that myself, _thanks._"

"You'll be a great father, taicho. I'll help you and Eri-san out too." The assassin sat up and patted the man on the knee. "So long as you don't try to emulate sensei anymore, I think your kid's going to turn out fine."

"_Hey!_" Sakumo glared at the cheerful duel eyed AnBu, finally huffing and gesturing for her to get up. "If you're done having a laugh at my expense, let's get to work."

Natsumi grinned at him and darted to where she had set down her bokken.

\V/

"Why do you always grab me to shop with?"

"Cause you hate it just as much as I do. I'm sharing the misery, Shikaku-kun." Natsumi winked back at him, smirking at the flat look the Nara heir was aiming at the back of her head. "Besides, you're a better judge of quality, and this way your kaa-san stops asking you to do chores for her so we don't have to listen to you gripe about it later."

The shadow master slouched even further, and the assassin was sure he would be glowering if he cared any less for what they were doing. "Why not just do as Fugaku-san does? Send a gift of whatever throwing weapons a person favors."

The misplaced soldier rolled her mismatched eyes as she tugged him down another street. "Because Fugaku-sama has no imagination. It's Minato-kun's _birthday_, not the anniversary of his last _promotion_."

Shikaku finally cracked a lazy smirk. "Insulting and helpful, I like it."

"Of course you do. Two birds, meet one stone." Natsumi sniffed haughty as she stopped to check a window display. "I'm highly tempted to let Mikoto-chan _borrow_ my bladed hair sticks for her wedding just so she can stab him when he's being too uptight Uchiha on her. Especially if the two of them are going to force the rest of us into attending a formal wedding with some of the biggest snobs in the village."

The dark haired and tanned teen standing next to her as she scoped out store windows cocked his head to the side curiously. "Borrow?" The assassin had stressed that one word strangely, almost in a sing song kind of tone.

"Yeah. You know; something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue?"

"Can't say I've ever heard it before." Shikaku frowned, looking off in the distance and probably trying to place that quote in his head.

"Huh, and here I thought that ancient tradition would never die." Natsumi tapped her fingers against the glass she was looking though. "How about that?"

"A well-crafted piece of work." The Nara heir remarked as he peered through to where she was pointing. "Saa, I thought you said gifting weapons had no imagination behind it."

"Standard weapons, no matter the quality, yes. We go through them like water." The assassin opened the door, wrinkling her nose at the tang of hot iron that gusted out of the blacksmithing store. "Unique weapons, though, tend to be kept carefully stored away or used only when in emergency, because non-standard weapons in a fight usually means jutsu aided or with some kind of effect you have to be insanely careful around."

Standard weapons were also issued per month, out of the replacement funds the village took out of every ninja's pay. It kept the traffic down in the blacksmith shops for others that would need the services of a blacksmith, otherwise there would eventually be one hell of a waiting list to get kunai, senbon, or shuriken in large enough quantity to not care if you lost two or three every time you sparred with another or lost entire braces of them on mission. Every time you or your team brought in an enemy shinobi or nuke-nin you also got a bonus per pound of steel they had on them, because that ninja's weapons were sent to specific shops to be melted down and reused in the Konoha standard molds. There also was a standing D-rank mission posted every week to collect lost weapons in the training fields, and Natsumi could recall Jiraiya getting that one for the team more than once.

Besides, those were some _very_ familiar three pronged kunai.

"Kushina-chan would be proud. Pranking enemy ninjas."

Natsumi threw him a smirk over her shoulder. "What can I say? I'm multitalented. Think I should get him some new brushes, or would that be infringing Kushina-hime's prerogatives?" Hey, maybe her kouhai would get a hint for his hiraishin sooner.

"She's getting him some better quality ink and more blank scrolls." Shikaku gave her an unamused look as he followed her into the store. "And yes, I know you all are really using me to keep track of who's getting who what. I demand a bribe if I'm going to keep doing this."

"We could _also_ sit there and poke you with a stick when you try to take a nap."

"… You're _mean_, Natsumi-chan."

\V/

Sometimes, Natsumi really hated the mission office ninjas.

The only way out of the Genin Corps without picking up some major skills in a specialization and finding a sensei to teach you more was a promotion, and only about a third of the ninja that were sent to the corps ever made chuunin. The Chuunin Corps were the shinobi version of nine-to-five workers of Konoha. They ran the sensitive information to one ninja or another, filing away Intelligence and jutsu knowledge in respective libraries, looked over the missions contracted to the village and tasked other shinobi to complete them, processed the unholy legion of paperwork that grew every day, filled in the ranks between the jounin candidates that hit the same rank as them, were the main teachers at the academy, and eventually retired and did the same thing as a civilian except for the whole 'prior shinobi experience' and filling in the battle ready ranks of ninjas available.

The newer Chuunin Corps members were pretty nice, excited by the rank most had thought they would never see. But the older ones that were or nearly were retired were _assholes_.

It was almost like they _knew_ when a ninja of the jounin track had plans and conspired to make them or someone else you wanted there miss whatever was going on. Like how she was going to end up missing her kouhai's birthday if this took as long as they said it would.

She pinned the poor messenger nin with a glare over the top of the scroll. "This couldn't wait two days?"

The career genin rapidly paled. He might be older than her by at least two years or so and taller, but she was a rank above him that he wasn't imagining he'd see. "Sorry, ma'am."

Natsumi blinked, not expecting his answer to the question because it had been mostly rhetorical and slightly hostile. She had though he would run after giving her the missive, Minato and Inoichi had repeatedly claimed she wasn't pleasant in the morning when woken up before she wanted to be.

"Whatever, scram." She blearily checked the just rising sun for a moment and then slammed her apartment door in his face. Swiftly yanking off the worn shirt she had stolen from Inoichi when they were still genin and his laundry had ended up in her pack for whatever reason, she started to make a list of what she had less than two hours to do it all in as she started the shower.

Time for shinobi was a strange thing. Only Intelligence, R&D, and medical specializing ninja actually used timestamps, for patrols around Konoha, shift changes, experimentation notes, and patient medication records. That was it. The rest of the shinobi world used the sky. You had until high noon for a spar, get to this location before sunset on that day ended, the target needs to die before the moon rose, be home before the sun rose again.

The only reason that was the way it was, was because the tick of any clock would betray a shinobi's presence to those with sharp enough ears since there _were_ ninjas around that could pinpoint an enemy by their _breathing_. That on-mission sensitivity was hard to come down from and also made it hard for most shinobi to deal with the incessant tick of clockwork near them, so they never usually used them when off-duty or at home either unless they were genin or they lived with civilians. Some shinobi got good enough to judge the hour by how high or low the sun was, and some even got to half hour increments, or by their scarily accurate body clocks. But those skills usually only developed around the time a lifelong ninja got around the sannins' age of mid twenty, and by then you'd never remember to put that in your report.

The digital timepieces of her last life wouldn't have been a problem, but nothing around her said any kind of technological development was heading in that direction anytime soon.

It was probably how Kakashi got away with being chronically late after the Yondaime's death. The memorial stone was in a forested part of Training Grounds Seven, and anyone asking him to be somewhere when the sun rose wouldn't have a good way to argue _when_ the sun actually rose with the forever tardy Hatake without sounding like an insensitive dick over the Fourth's death. If the worst happened, she was going to lobby for a clock to be put in the memorial stone.

Natsumi sighed heavily and assembled a quick mission pack after wrapping herself in a towel, taking the pre-packed rations she had stored in her fridge and throwing that into the backpack she always had ready for a trip outside the village. It held a few changes of clothes, her sleeping roll sealed courtesy of Kushina, replacement weapons if needed, and the other odds and ends she had found useful in other missions in AnBu already, it was only in need of perishable supplies and her AnBu kit, because that was in a sealing scroll sealed into her closet door since AnBu technically didn't exist.

The whole business of being sent a missive by messenger nin about a mission was a little worrying to her, because she wasn't on a cell and notices from the mission office were _not_ given to her but to Sakumo if she was requested for her shinobi specialties or as a kunoichi to run a mission.

After genin rank of the jounin track, you were sorted into one of two categories for chuunin. Either you were assigned a general use cell with a leading tokubetsu or full jounin, or unassigned for further training. Natsumi, Minato, Kushina, Fugaku, and Hiashi were all unassigned chuunin. She and her kouhai for their apprenticeships for kenjutsu and fuuinjutsu respectively, the only Uzumaki in the village because of the nine-tails, the Hyuuga clan head because he _was_ a clan head, and the Uchiha heir because of his work with the Military Police. Then there were the cells, of which only Chouza, Shikaku, and Inoichi were on the same one while Mikoto and Hizashi were on separate teams.

Missions were also taken in one of two ways when you were a chuunin. Either your team leader decided the cell you were assigned needed a new mission or the mission office needed you to take such and such mission with shinobi A and B and or C because you all had the specialty mix to complete it as requested, but those last ones were funneled through unassigned ninja's masters if available or the leader of your cell for scheduling around training and injuries. It was also the only way chuunins of the Chuunin Corps could get another promotion, to impress a jounin that led the mission and get a recommendation for a partial rank advancement.

Shinobi would not be able to pick a few of their own missions until B-rank, or tokubetsu jounin. That rank was when permanent pre-structured cell formations were normally dissolved, unless you were tasked with a team of chuunin to lead for the experience, and either new teams were made up specifically for a mission or you and how many other ninjas picked up a mission out of the mission office's list of available jobs that needed completion.

A-rank shinobi, full jounin, were a league all of their own and were allowed to pick and choose their own missions that called for their specialties, both for themselves and whatever team they were asked to lead, unless requested by name by a client.

AnBu was another matter entirely, but they had their own mission office and the missive didn't have that black stamp on the bottom for a needed assassination mission.

So why the hell had an unassigned kunoichi with an available master to handle mission requests just been summoned to the mission office when the sun hit the base of the Hokage Monument?

(ooo000ooo)

As the first one there, the AnBu assassin checked around the meeting place and picked a spot so she could see who she was going on this mission with. She hadn't yet had the opportunity to take a mission with other chuunins she didn't know, as Sakumo would only be letting her do the D to C-ranked assassinations needed by AnBu if they came up for the time being. Perched in a branch as she was, Natsumi was only mildly surprised when the male Aburame chuunin nodded to her when his bugs pinpointed her in the tree.

Never having the same problem other kunoichis she grew up with, as long as they had less than eight legs she was fine with the insects, the assassin leapt out of her perch and landed lightly next to him. "Know who else we're waiting on?"

"I do not know who all was assigned to the mission. Why? I was not the one picked to lead on this mission."

The duel eyed kunoichi straightened up with a nod to show she understood. "I was, though I was told you've run missions with our last member. Mesuji Natsumi, nice to meet you."

The bug user considered her a moment behind thick, dark glasses. "… Aburame Shibi."

Oh. "The heir to your clan?"

A nod was her only answer. Having dealt with both Hyuuga twins and Uchihas when they were not feeling very talkative, Natsumi just nodded back and kept quiet.

The crashing sounds of someone running through the underbrush started coming their way, and the assassin had to wonder if whoever that was making Shibi subtly cringe was the last member of their temporary team.

An Inuzuka… if the wild hair, red triangles on the cheeks, and the large dog following her were any clue. "Well, at least I ain't gonna have to wait on your asses. Let's go. Tsume the name, girl."

Wait… ah, fuck. Didn't Shibi and Tsume dislike each other until the bug user saved either the dog or the other teenager from death?

Natsumi just knew this mission was going to give her a headache. And maybe some more cracked ribs, damn it. Her last set had _just_ healed up under Tsunade's hands three days ago.

\V/

"It's not my fault sempai is out of the village." Minato gave Fugaku the look he considered that comment to deserve. "She had a mission. I'm just the one telling you."

"Lay off, Fugaku-san." Kushina aimed her brush at the Uchiha heir's head, warning him that she had no problem getting ink all over his face if he didn't stop. "Some of us only have so long free, so stop complaining if someone who is on mission anyways isn't here."

Fugaku huffed at them. "Our research will not be able to continue _without_ Natsumi-san."

"Then complain to the mission office." Hizashi offered levelly, ignoring the glare aimed his way from the older teen. "But we should return to the main reason we are here before nii-sama needs me to leave and return to the clan compound."

"Yep! Minato-kun's birthday!" The red head abandoned her work and stole one of Natsumi's favorite way of flustering one of the males, all but laying down on the flushing blond's lap. "Aren't you excited?"

"I don't need a birthday party, Kushina-chan." Her fellow fuuinjutsu user claimed, warily eyeing the teen encroaching into his personal space. Natsumi did it to him enough, he didn't need Kushina picking up that habit too.

Chouza froze with one hand in his bag of chips. "Why not?"

"But it has been a while since all of us had the time to meet up at the same place, other than the now monthly meetings we have at Biwako-sama's or Tsunade-sama's compounds." Mikoto countered quickly before the orphan could give a reason they would have to respect, smirking at his annoyed look. "If Natsumi-chan can make it back, it would be even better."

"Besides, remember how pissed she was when we let you claim that last year and she found out?" All but laughing at his fellow blond's predicament, Inoichi turned his grin at the rest of them. "Minato was all but pouting the whole week she wouldn't talk to him."

Minato finally turned fully red, glaring at the mind walker. "She wasn't all that happy with you, either. And I can distinctly recall some cringing on your end."

"So the moral of the story is we're having a party whether you like it or not." Shikaku interrupted before the sniping could get worse. "Natsumi-chan gave me her presents for you before she skipped out for her mission, and I don't feel like annoying her the way you two idiots did. She's bad enough when she's cheerful."

Both blonds blinked at the Nara heir, and Minato started frowning. "Wait. If you knew sempai wasn't here, why did you let me tell Fugaku-san when you got here first?"

"Cause I don't feel like being glared at either. Still don't, so stop it."

\V/

This was… hmm, _awkward_.

The main part of their mission was done and it had only been a day since they set out. But… her two fellow shinobi were still setting the other off.

Natsumi looked between the Inuzuka teen and the Aburame, wondering what kami she had pissed off lately. Shibi, being a naturally quiet kind of guy as well as a seemingly impassive shinobi, was rubbing Tsume's, a very loud kunoichi with less than tolerant patience for standing on ceremony and for what she saw as useless, fur the wrong way by simply staring at her.

Or at least the assassin was kinda sort of sure he was staring. The sunglasses made it hard to tell.

They also really did know each other for a long while now, if the way Tsume was barking at him was any measure.

There was this pounding sensation throbbing behind her left eye, and Natsumi was starting to get fed up with all of this. Maybe she had been a little spoiled by going AnBu straight out of the academy and by being snatched by the Toad Sage as soon as the war ended, but she hadn't had to deal with two opposite personalities clashing while on mission before. There was no personality in AnBu, they sometimes didn't really even seem like _humans_ behind the painted masks, and she already got along well with her own kouhai and his fellow blond.

"Look, I think we all know there's some kind of unresolved sexual tension going on between the two of you. But stow it, we're on _mission_ right now_._"

Tsume's jaw hung open for a moment, mid-insult.

After a small start of shock on his end, Shibi turned that blank visage of his to her.

Natsumi glared at the both of them, Kuromaru panting doggy laughter as he sat next to her. "For fucks sake, you're acting worse than academy students. Yes, even you Shibi-san. So now if the two of you are done with the pissing match over who killed what bandit, I've got a birthday party that had better be happening to crash."

That verbal smack to the face done, the assassin grabbed her pack and tanto and leapt up into the trees, hightailing it back the way they came.

Screw the few days of observation, she knew exactly what was wrong.

\V/

"It's not a clan thing of hating another tracker on principle, Hokage-sama. It's a bit of an extreme personality clash."

"Thank you, Natsumi-chan, for going along with this." Sarutobi Hiruzen sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose. "Tell me what you saw."

The AnBu hummed and nodded, bouncing a little on her feet as she assembled the information she had in her head. There really hadn't been a way to say no to the order, but it was nice of the Sandaime to say that.

The mission hadn't been _her_ mission but an analysis of how two C-ranked ninjas being considered for promotion got along during _their_ mission.

Anyone being assigned a Yamanaka clan member for a quick mission were usually suspicious of being reviewed for mental health reasons unless said Yamanaka was needed to screw over a target's or witnesses' heads. Inoichi had told the Hokage that sometime during their meetings his wife still hosted for them every month even with Jiraiya out of the village, and suggested her to the older ninja in case of irritable or touchy shinobi who wouldn't ignore any doubts cast on their methods by the presence of one. The assassin had been the one to give him a number of psychology tips from her past life, and knew how to do field assessments on soldiers already. Natsumi wasn't really sure why the Yamanaka clan heir had done it, but it resulted in her 'emergency' mission two days before her kouhai's birthday when someone got fed up with listening to Tsume try and find Shibi's breaking point.

Damn sneaky blonds. Damn sneaky kage too, for that matter. Using the meetings between younger shinobi as a way to sound out alternative means for troubleshooting the issues between your shinobi. Tsk, tsk.

"Inuzuka Tsume is brash as most of her clan is, respecting only quality skills and forceful personalities. Aburame Shibi is a naturally quiet shinobi, and like the rest of _his_ clan is either unwilling or uncaring about establishing dominance with someone he _knows_ is a comrade, and ninja enough to like confusing her to hell and back in the meantime. Tsume-san keeps challenging Shibi-san as per her clan's normal habits of placing new people in the pack hierarchy, but he's not responding like she's expecting so she keeps doing it over again when he shows good shinobi traits she likes to see in the village's pack. The only reason she's getting irritated is because they're stuck like that. But since Kuromaru isn't against Shibi-san's presence, I can safely guess Tsume-san is only frustrated at herself for knowing there's a problem but not realizing what it is or how to fix it."

Inuzukas were interesting from a psychology standpoint. You didn't just deal with one Inuzuka, you dealt with an Inuzuka and however many littermates they had. Each member of the clan, regardless if they turned out to be ninja or not later on, were raised with either a canine companion or companions whelped from one of the parents' nin-kin and the kennel dogs a few years after their own birth, as few as one and as many as five in a litter. Those dogs were seen as shinobi in their own rights within the clan and sometimes without as well; able to start training to fight alongside their human between the age of four and six as well as use their own chakra to speak to humans once they reached adult size at about ten to fifteen years of age. The nin-kin of the Inuzuka clan could live up to a grand total anywhere near thirty five to forty five years before succumbing to old age, about as long as a ninja could realistically work for before being retired from active duty, and would never be replaced if killed in battle or they died of natural causes. But Inuzukas lived and worked so close to their dogs that they unconsciously adopted traits from their chakra using nin-kin to the point they seemed even more canine-like, in the pack-like way of viewing everyone, being able to understand the younger dogs unable to speak the human language aloud, and the mentality of defending the pack and obeying alpha. The pack being those living in Konoha and alpha being the clan head or the Hokage. The physical, almost canine traits could either have been selectively bred into them or old marks of the Wolf Summoning Contract still showing in later descendants. Legend in that clan had it that the dogs they had now were reared from the wolves summoned and kept in this dimension long enough to have a litter of pups. That Contract, if it had ever existed, was missing now, but since the Dog Summoning Contract was held by the Hatake clan and the Inuzukas hadn't raised unholy hell about it, it was possible they did once hold the Wolf Contract.

Aburames were another curious clan. There was little known publicly about the physical adaptations of those ninjas to the destruction beetles that marked their existence, but their mentality was also pulled from the insects they mainly used. Kikachu were hive minded, like bees and wasps. The queen produced the next generations, the workers kept the queen alive, and the soldiers kept the whole hive safe. Aburames considered Hokage-sama the queen, the civilians the workers, the shinobi corps the soldiers, and Konoha the hive. Logical thinking was prized to them and most were unconcerned for individual welfare compared to survival of the whole, they were the damn near perfect soldiers if not generally good leader material. Which was why a lot of civilians gave the clan members a wide berth, and even shinobi were careful around the clan.

Natsumi had to wonder if the fellow shinobi Sakumo had saved in lieu of completing his last mission had been an Aburame, it would account for the initial backlash against her old captain if he went against the wishes of an unusually fanatical clan ninja and failed whatever objective they had in the process. Aburames were another of the noble founding clans of Konoha. The rise of the Third Great Shinobi War from the botched mission would account for the rest of the pressure that made her taicho take his own life, and he probably had done it only so his son didn't have to deal with most of it. The man was irritating when he got around to fussing about how others saw her small form in AnBu armor now that he could do it to her and not just in his head, and she could only dread how bad he was going to be about Kakashi's wellbeing.

So unlike an Inuzuka's frontal challenge to sort out dominance before working with another, an Aburame would just melt into view to complete a task and then fade away into the background content with their efforts.

Tsume and Shibi didn't really have a problem with each other, one was teasing the other without knowing it in the beginning and continuing to do so since he couldn't find a way out of the loop.

"It'll work out itself, once Tsume-san figures out that Shibi-san's not just going to conform to her expectations and she needs to place him without fighting him over everything to see where he dominates. Shibi-san can't do it because he honestly can't figure out how to do that or get the idea across to her even if he's been trying to. But until then they shouldn't be assigned anything you care about being traced back to Konoha, Hokage-sama."

The older man nodded, gesturing to the scroll she had wrote it all out on. "When you go see Minato-kun, take Inoichi-kun your analysis so it can be filed with his clan. I believe they are still holding your kouhai's birthday party in the Nara clan compound."

"Hai, Hokage-sama."

(ooo000ooo)

"Oh, Inoichi-_kun!_"

"Aa… Natsumi-sempai?"

"Hmm? Is there a problem, kouhai?"

Minato looked a little pale. "Put the tanto down, please."

Inoichi heard that and dove to the floor in the nick of time, warily eyeing the shaft of sharp metal embedded above his head and still humming from the force of the assassin's throw. "Is there a reason you just tried to kill me?"

"Oh please. If I wanted to kill you, you'd be dead." The still irritated teen-woman huffed, eyeing him in return for the ugly look he was giving her AnBu issued tanto. "And that's for the suggestion you gave Hokage-sama. Here, you file the damn report on it."

The scroll beamed the mind walker between the eyes, snapping his head back and knocking him out of his chair.

Shikaku cracked opened one of his eyes, peering over and barely blinking at the sword sprouting from the wall of his home because he was more interested in the abuse she was heaping on her old teammate and his current one. "And now for the rest of us who want to know why you almost killed someone in my kitchen?"

Natsumi gave him a dirty look of his own, stripping off her mission pack and letting it fall to the floor before yanking her short sword out of the living room wall so she could put that away in the scroll Minato had given her for her last birthday and she used for her AnBu kit. "Inoichi-kun gave Sarutobi-sama my name if he needed some ninjas evaluated for how well they work with others, since I'm not a Yamanaka by clan or name but I do work with him on some of his projects and wouldn't be immediately suspected of doing that kind of evaluation right off the bat. That's why I almost missed my kouhai's birthday."

Kushina shoved a plate in front of her face. "Cake?"

Derailed, the assassin blinked at the offering nearly under her nose. "If can't kill it, hime, why would I want cake?"

"Chouza-kun's okaa-san made it."

"Mmm… kay." Plate in hand, Natsumi fitted herself in between Shikaku and Hizashi and across from Minato, Inoichi, and Chouza.

Mikoto snickered at her, and all the AnBu did in return was a rude gesture since her mouth was full. Hey, Akimichi cooking was _really_ good.

"At least it had to be important, right?" Inoichi accepted the Akimichi heir's offer of a hand up, rubbing the mark on his forehead as he reclaimed his seat and took the scroll back from Fugaku. "If they called you out with so little time to prepare?"

"It was a pissing match between an Inuzuka and an Aburame going around in left hand circles. All they need to do is get over themselves and screw each other. Problem solved."

Natsumi decided the various spit takes were the second best part of her day so far, next to making it back in time for her kouhai's birthday. Hiashi really did have a great pair of lungs on him given how far that milk went.

Wait… who _had_ been Hana's father?

\V/

Mesuji Natsumi was an odd woman trapped in a teen's body.

Kushina had known that she was since her home country was destroyed, when the duel eyed girl had silently sat by her and let her grieve for her missing home on her shoulder. She hadn't know just how odd until she was rescued from being kidnapped by Kumo nins and been fully informed as to what was behind those ghost eyes of the girl's had been another strange turn.

It hadn't been until Mito-baa-sama died that Kushina began to appreciate just how lonely the other kunoichi had to have been before, Natsumi having eight years keeping to herself in order to grieve about people and places long dust before Minato pulled her out of it and she started to claw her way out of that depression. Admittedly when the older Uzumaki had died the red head hadn't been in the best state to understand that thought, and gave the assassin a few sharp words about loss.

Then Natsumi told her what she had lost compared to the lone Uzumaki. And Kushina felt some kinship with her after the horrible embarrassment of grating open the other girl-woman's hidden scars about her old life.

There were times when the assassin was more there than here, the commanding, war hardened soldier that had come before rather than the quirky, mischievous kunoichi she was now. You could tell when Natsumi just stopped, going silent, serious, poised, and her eyes grew colder than how they looked framed by a bone white and black streaked mask. Those incidents were getting farther and farther between, and Inoichi told them it was perfectly normal, kind of like how Kushina would never get over losing Uzugakure but would finally adapt to that loss, but it was still creepy to see happen to someone you half expected to tell you to get laid so they didn't have to deal with your grouchy attitude anymore.

Talking to her when she was like this was another thing entirely. Only Minato had complete success at it, Inoichi and Shikaku had some successes of their own... but she would also respond to Kushina as much as the boy turned teenager that saved her from her own mind. So when no one could find her within the village, either she or Minato were sent up to the Hokage's Monument to fetch her.

"Natsumi-chan?"

"You don't have to keep coming out here if you don't want to, hime."

"Aa… I have a question." The icy cold eyes turned to her, warming only a little when she didn't flinch back. "Do you know…?" The red headed teen placed her hand over her stomach.

"Mito-sama was the last one, its common knowledge in AnBu if you have the rank for it. You were taught exclusively by her. Yes, Kushina-hime. I put it together." The assassin sat down over the edge of the cliff, gesturing her to sit as well. "Why ask?"

Kushina sat next to Natsumi, carefully thinking of how she wanted to address her concerns. She had suspected the misplaced soldier had known, and the confirmation was just setting her more on edge. "Do you think any of the others will catch on?"

"Unless they join AnBu as well, I highly doubt it. Most of Konoha think he was sealed into something else, like how Suna has the one-tail contained in a teapot. Saa, a few of our little group of friends will be told, of course. I'm mostly sure someone's told Hiashi-san and Fugaku-sama already." The red head lost all the color in her face, and the AnBu turned to her and placed her hand on her shoulder. "Hey. Do they treat you any differently than me? I highly doubt they care beyond being thankful someone's keeping track of his royal furriness."

Shock at the slight against the nine-tails made the Uzumaki snort a laugh out even if she was scared half to death from the subject matter. "I'll have to remember that one."

The assassin hummed, dropping her hand and turning back to the view of the village from the Hokage's Monument. "You want to know if you should tell the others yourself?"

"Well… yeah, dattebane."

"From a security standpoint, no. The more people who know the more likely it will get out." Before Kushina could stammer out a thanks and scramble to leave, Natsumi continued. "From a psychology one? Yeah I think you should. There was this little pithy saying once upon a time, a burden shared is a burden halved. Stupid sounding, but it got me out of one hell of a rut back in the academy."

The jinchuuriki absorbed that as the teen-woman next to her came to life a bit, swinging her feet. "I know it's a bit rude to ask, but was there anything like me back then?"

"Nukes, maybe. But that was more instant obliteration in a large area than a force of chakra made real through someone else's will that could stomp Konoha flat in a few minutes."

Not having expected a readied answer for her question, Kushina looked directly at Natsumi. "Where they ever used?"

"Yep." The smile the assassin wore was lopsided and grim. "Twice as far as I knew, and another whole war was fought over who could _possibly_ maybe kill who first with them."

"D-do you think I'll be used like that-t?"

Yes, but Natsumi didn't think that would go over well with the unsettled Uzumaki teen right at that moment. The assassin sighed and tugged at her loose and long hair, something she had never gotten around to cutting before it became a sort of signal her body recognized to mean off-duty and relaxation time. There had to be a way to get Kushina willing to use Kurama's hate in defense of the village sometime soon, because it _had_ happened before. "You have to understand, Kushina-hime, the village is only about forty or so years old right now and what I can recall had been in place and squabbling for _centuries_. I know it doesn't seem like it because we were _raised_ here, but Sandaime-sama is actually _older_ than Konoha is as a village. If I recall our history lessons right he was around five to ten-ish when the first buildings were built, and our village was the _first_ one founded as a permanent shinobi stronghold for several ninja clans. Our world right now is trying to figure out how this method of dividing and hording power is working for or against them, and we're nowhere near close to figuring that out. My last life had some defined lines where world powers were concerned, and even _that_ wasn't conflict free. I can estimate another war on the horizon before any kind of uneasy peace breaks out for however long, and even that will be continually tested because no one likes being second or even third best." _I can guess because I already know it's going to happen, I just can't tell you that yet._

The jinchuuriki stared hard at her. "Why not? Konoha has come out on top in the last two wars. Wouldn't the other Hidden Villages respect that?"

"But we lost a Hokage per war. This last war only proved that they were right to found Konoha for the next generations, the sannin beat that into everyone's heads to the point that no one argued. When this next was comes to be, if _we_ can keep up the reputation the _Densetsu_ _no_ _Sannin_ started and hold onto Sandaime-sama to prove the method will hold true for later generations _and_ we can make it a decisive victory without losing a major pillar of Konoha, _then_ some kind of respect will be offered anything with the Leaf symbol on it and the mass majority of the fighting will have been done and over with."

It's what Namikaze Minato had done almost on his own merit, becoming the Yellow Flash and hammering Iwa almost into bloody dust by himself. It was what Uzumaki Kushina helped to do becoming the Red Hot-Blooded Habanero, a mix of Kurama's rage and her own protective nature for those closest to her aimed at ripping apart Konoha's enemies. It was why the Shika-Ino-Chou team-up became famous enough that the next generation was sorted that way from the very start. They had done that to show the rest of the shinobi world that Konohagakure was not a village to mess with unless they wanted to lose _badly_.

It was why Konoha was targeted first by Uchiha Madara even if the nine-tails was the last bijuu he needed for the Moon-Eye Plan; to test the method of extraction, bring down the best of the villages, as well as take revenge for honorable Hashirama-sama kicking him out. Even if had meant he would lose sight of the nine-tailed fox while he gathered the rest of the eight other bijuu. It also made the division of power unstable, taking out two of the key fighters of the Third War and new kage of Konohagakure, making the other villages think they could grab that title of the Strongest Hidden Village of the Five Great Shinobi Nations, if they only struck hard enough to make a fracture someone could take advantage of.

Kumo tried for it once, snatching the Hyuuga heiress under the guise of a non-aggression treaty. Then Hiashi had beaten the shit out of the kidnappers before killing the abductors of his daughter and Sandaime-sama had to offer him up to keep the conflicts of the Third Great War from rising again, but it proved that Konoha might have been weakened but not down by a long shot when Hizashi took his place and war didn't break out again.

"If there was an opportunity to ensure any children you or I may have would never see any kind of war until their own _twenties_, hime, what would you do to see it happen?"

"Oh… I would do a _lot_."

The two of them sat there, each contemplating exactly what they would do for that prospect becoming reality. Natsumi finally nudged the jinchuuriki, curious as to why she had been sought out. "What's up, anyways? It's my day off from training."

"Sakumo-sama is pissed at you for telling Tsunade-sama about his girlfriend. She demanded to be the medic consulted for the pregnancy and whacked him a good one for not telling her himself."

"Aa… I think I'm going to stay up here for now. Tell Minato-kun to fetch me when taicho gets over it."

Well, Natsumi never did find out what happened to Kakashi's mom. Better safe than sorry, and Eri was a nice lady.

\V/

She was going to kill Inoichi.

Not happy had been how she felt when her last 'emergency' mission rose up, and 'pissed' was starting to describe how she felt now with a long term mission about the same subject matter staring her in the face.

But… Hokage-sama ordered her to do it, so she'd do it.

Kami-sama help them all if she missed taicho's son being born, though.

Natsumi sighed in defeat and looked up from the mission scroll in her hands to the office ninja. "Targets?" She accepted the second scroll filled with D or C-rank assassination targets to take care of while they were gone, gesturing for the two other chuunins to follow her out of the Hokage's Tower.

Tsume and Shibi were staring at her back as they hit the courtyard outside and Kuromaru joined them, and she could sort of see why if she wasn't in the mood to appreciate the whys of it. Being told that younger ninja you ran a mission with was actually an assassin specialist benched from AnBu for the length of her kenjutsu apprenticeship was a little jarring, about as much as being told she had been tasked with finding a way to solve the problems between them while they played backup for _her_ mission of a string of minor assassinations for AnBu. An assassin training in the ninja ways of the sword moonlighting as a shinobi psychologist… _hey_, she was creepier than she thought she was!

Cheered up enough by that realization to be somewhat sociable, Natsumi turned back to the two plus dog behind her. "Come on, we got a place to be first before we grab mission kits and leave."

"Breaking the news to your friends?" Tsume asked warily, not sounding too sure about the reason the duel eyed teen had.

"That… or attempted homicide. I'm not picky."

(ooo000ooo)

Inoichi spotted her coming this time, blanching white and scrambling up to run for dear life.

Natsumi stopped in the middle of the Senju clan compound's front yard, watching the mind walker disappear into the forests within the compound. "Damn. Someone warned him."

"I did, Natsumi-chan." Sakumo's hand hit her upside the head. "No harming your friends. Do we need to have this conversation again?"

"Hey! I intentionally missed last time." The assassin gritted out, one had going to reset the bun her hair was in. "And no, taicho. We don't need to have that conversation again, they don't have visible scars."

As the stare down between master and apprentice was going on, Minato turned to the two other chuunins he didn't recognize. "Why are you two here? Does sempai have a mission again?"

"Err… yeah. We've got a… um." Tsume floundered mid-sentence as she watched, vastly confused by what was going on and how much she could tell someone else about the teen dancing around the older Hatake's reach. And was that the young Hyuuga clan head and his brother over there with the heir to the Uchihas and his intended bride? When the hell has she been hit with a genjutsu?

"Assassinations, kouhai." Natsumi pulled a face at her taicho, getting bopped on the head again. "We're going to kill a few people, solve the issues between those two, and hopefully come back in time for Eri-san to have taicho's kid. If not, I make no promises that I'll still have two teammates coming back. The dog will be fine, either way."

She ducked the third swipe at her head, hiding behind the amused Chouza and sticking her tongue out at the silver haired man.

Shikaku pushed himself upright enough to look at the two newcomers and the dog. "They're the two 'going around in left hand circles'?" The Inuzuka and nin-kin both looked slightly incredulous about everything going on, and the Aburame's eyebrows were visible over his dark glasses. The Nara heir felt for them, really. Sometimes _he_ didn't know how he had been pulled into this circus either.

"It's not really their fault, which is why I've been tasked to solve it for them. It's just a matter of how they view the world." _And a saving a life thing that I need to work out how to do if I'm the only one supposed to see any combat on this mission._

"Sucks to be you, then."

"I'm hurt, Kushina-hime. I thought you _liked_ me."

"Shut _up_, Natsumi-chan."

\V/

There were many small clinics in the village that took both ninjas and civilians as patients, but the main hospital in Konoha was segregated. It _had_ to be, because then no shinobi would feel alright about dropping one's guard enough for a iryou-nin to check them over if just anyone could get into their part of the hospital wings when they couldn't defend themselves at an instant's notice. The clinics were treated more like stationary first-aid stations by the ninja ranks, used as stepping stones until they were stable enough to either leave for home or make it to the hospital, rather than mini hospitals that the civilians saw them as.

But there were times when the shinobi side and the civilian wings mixed, when there were more injured ninjas than chakra using medics and when ninjas had civilian significant others and they became injured or ill and said shinobi didn't recall in time that they had their own side of the hospital when rushing them there.

Like when Hatake Sakumo panicked about Yamamoto Eri's contractions and took her to the kunoichi medical wing. Senju Tsunade would have knocked the frantic would-be-father through a wall or two if the situation hadn't been so dire. Instead she tasked the group of friends showing up in the waiting room with sitting on one of their fellow's master until she could deal with him later.

Minato sighed, a bouncing foot up and down giving away his nervousness. "Sempai's late."

The Akimichi doing the actual sitting on Sakumo, his legs to pin the older shinobi in place, looked up to the darkening sky outside the hallway window. "The baby's early, Minato-kun. It's not her fault."

"She's still going to be pissed with those two if she doesn't make it." At the low whimper from the man on the floor, Shikaku slapped his own face with his hand before the glaring Inoichi could do it for him. "Bad word choice, sorry Sakumo-sama."

Eri's water had broken, but she was also bleeding heavily and in more pain that she should be. Tsunade had sent for Biwako by sending Hizashi out to summon the older kunoichi, but the two of them hadn't arrived there yet. Kushina and Mikoto were in with the civilian woman, claiming teammate rights to stand in for Natsumi and her master in the delivery room.

"Why are you sitting on my taicho, Chouza-kun?" A female in a Panther AnBu mask slid through the window the Akimichi heir had just looked through, slinking over to where the silver head on the floor was as she pushed her mask up so everyone could see her ghost pale, duel colored eyes. "Biwako-sama is in there now. She came through the other window."

Thank kami for retired kunoichi midwives.

Sakumo surged upright, actually knocking Chouza off his legs. "Let's go… but, aa… you might want to change first."

(ooo000ooo)

Natsumi had made it back in time to see Kakashi born, a month premature but healthy, and ew. And also _ow_. Did she really want to go through _that_ sometime in the future?

Eri would be fine, seeing as Tsunade had been fetched before anything really bad could happen. Biwako had taken care of delivering the baby while the Slug Princess handled the damage an active chakra network in a newborn could cause before it harmed the mother too badly.

Apparently Kakashi wasn't just happy being labeled a child prodigy at three or five or whenever, he wanted it sooner.

Brat.

But Natsumi did manage to get why Kushina and Mikoto had been in with the new mother, and learned a bit about how shinobi viewed each other that she hadn't had a reason to find out yet.

Next of kin for shinobi were backwards seeming, to say the least. Usually, when a genin ninja was orphaned guardianship went to either the master or jounin sensei, not their closest blood relative. It was partly to keep a newly orphaned shinobi from having to deal with a new home situation while in training or handling missions, and partly to keep that ninja within the village as a Konoha shinobi if the only blood relations where outside the walls. Teammate rights were similar to sibling rights, you would have the power to step in like a family member since a ninja spent most of their time with their teams after a certain amount of time on one. It inevitably evolved for ninjas to consider their cell their family, and make their plans for the worse to involve them.

After you reached chuunin rank you didn't even have to have run a mission with a shinobi to claim being a teammate, you just had to know one well enough that the rest of the ninjas that _had_ ran missions with said shinobi wouldn't protest it.

Eri was considered Sakumo's wife, for all intents and purposes in the shinobi ranks, for the impending wedding date and for having his child. Mesuji Natsumi, as an orphaned kunoichi not yet at the age civilians would accept being self-sufficient, was legally a ward jointly cared for by Jiraiya and Sakumo, and now Eri as the not-so-last Hatake's sort of wife. Uzumaki Kushina and Uchiha Mikoto were the closest kunoichi to Natsumi, since neither Minato nor Inoichi had the gender to witness the birth of a child not their own although they had the rights for it and Sakumo was banished until he calmed down.

That was why the two kunoichi had stepped in Natsumi's and Sakumo's place, the assassin wasn't expected back for another month and her master wasn't calm enough to hold his soon-to-be-wife's hand.

Now in the sort of standard uniform of the chuunin corps, the only thing the hospital had to replace mission damaged clothing before discharging shinobi because she had thrown her mission pack at Tsume's head when she heard where her taicho was, Natsumi smirked down at the fluffy silver head of the baby in her arms. She could admit he was kind of cute, in that lobster red and wrinkled look of all newborns. And okay, yeah, she wanted one or two herself eventually.

"Didn't you have another few weeks out there before coming back? I _know_ you just came in the village since you were still in uniform." Sakumo's low voice carried over to her from where her kenjutsu master was sitting next to the sleeping form of Eri.

"Well… I finally got fed up with the two of them, threw them head first in a bandit encampment and didn't help until they got over their issues." At her old taicho's flat look, the assassin rolled her eyes. "Tsume-san's loud voice attracted attention of a wandering band of scruffy idiots, said idiots attacked thinking we were travelers and a dog in the middle of an argument. Shibi-san kept the Inuzuka teen from being beheaded while we were killing them. Something in her head went click, and now they can deal with each other. Mostly. I sped through the rest of my targets and we decided to run back because we had been out of the village a while and there was only two months to go before Kakashi-chan's due date."

"Don't you still have to report in?"

"If you wanna hold your son, say so taicho." Natsumi got up and carefully transferred the new Hatake clan member to his father. "And no. Hokage-sama gave me leave to report tomorrow instead of doing it then, giving me the news that you two… err, three, were in the hospital at the same time."

Sakumo smirked at Kakashi, who had started to fuss with the transference and the shifting sources of body heat. "Anything else to report?"

"I may have… _acquired_ an unfortunate nickname for my mask while out there."

A silver eyebrow rose, but the man didn't look up. "From speeding through your mission like a green recruit?"

"… Maybe."

(ooo000ooo)

_Sosen no Fukushu_. Avenging Ancestor.

Natsumi was sure some kami out there was laughing at her, but Minato was the only one she could hear at the moment. "Shut up already."

"Sorry." Her kouhai didn't look remotely apologetic about laughing at her or for the grin on his face. "But still… appropriate."

The assassin rolled the ghost eyes that gained her that nickname and slumped further into Minato's couch. Since either of her pale green and blue eyes were the only identifiable part of her in AnBu armor, some idiot she had missed sight of had recalled that when spreading the gossip of the assassinations she did. Natsumi was now wavering between being annoyed she was technically being called old and being impressed someone had escaped her notice after spotting her. She did have to hope the rumors would go away, that little nickname wasn't something she wanted attached to _her_ name.

It was a very good thing it was hard to judge the age of someone in AnBu uniform and the idiot only saw her blue eye, or some of the ninjas that had been in Suna for the chuunin exams would put her eyes together with the mask of the rumors and point fingers at her being an assassin and not a kenjutsu user in training. They might still do it, but most who spread those rumors wouldn't believe that a young woman would be the cold blooded killer called _Sosen no Fukushu_ without hard proof, and since the only other person in this world with her odd eyes was her kaa-san it would just give life to more rumors about dead women killing people. Civilians could be idiots sometimes.

And since other shinobi villages knowing that Konoha had a light blue eyed assassin of that much renown wouldn't damage the village's reputation, Hokage-sama wasn't all that annoyed with her. She would still be docked mission pay, and until the rumors died down whenever a foreign ninja came to Konoha she would be required to either be in AnBu armor and on-duty or wear her green contacts, but eh.

Since AnBu wasn't supposed to exist, there was an entire branch of Intelligence that handled rumormongering to counter any sighting or stories of AnBu agents caught in the act. They also held the negotiators that haggled the prices for missions the civilians paid for their work being done, and the propaganda department that made sure the people of Fire Country thought only good things about Konoha and horrible deeds went on in other villages. But there were members of the Chuunin Corps that were _paid_ just to go out to little towns and foreign countries and drink at a bar or four and exaggerate rumors circling around to keep a specific ninja from being identified. By the time they were done, _Sosen no Fukushu _might be anyone from a _male_ Hyuuga clan member to a nuke-nin under a genjutsu trying to keep from being identified.

Natsumi was just happy to be back in the village. Even if it did mean most of her friends would have a good laugh at her expense.

Besides, an almost four month long C-ranked AnBu assassination mission paid per target was a pretty hefty chunk of mission pay even with the knock off the top for risk taking.

"Natsumi-_chan!_ Someone else is looking for you!" Kushina simply waltzed right into the blond's apartment, grinning at the two of them. "We need to put up a sign that says if you're not home, check Minato-kun's place."

"And I would like to know who's looking for me before I bother going to see who it is." Natsumi stuck her nose in the air. "It looks like neither of us is going to get what we want."

"She has a dog with her and another teen full of bugs, does that count?"

"Ah, fuck." Tsume and Shibi then. But she had gotten back her mission pack from the Inuzuka when they reported to the Hokage that morning after taicho and his family was moved to his home, so what did they want? "Right."

The assassin got two feet from the door before she realized Kushina wasn't following. "Hime?"

"Hmm?"

"I don't think my kouhai needs someone to watch him ink a seal anymore. Apparently it's been a few weeks since he last screwed up an explosive tag, if the char marks on his table are any judge. Unless, of course, you want to stay and watch for another reason then I'm _all_ for you staying."

The Uzumaki went red with a squeak and sped out of there even as Minato blushed and glared at her for the crack against his competence in his ninja specialty before she closed his apartment door. The following small thuds might have been some sharp things lobbed at her head, but her adorable kouhai wouldn't do that to his respectable sempai. Mmm… maybe she should tone down the violence a little.

Kushina was writing something on the assassin's own apartment door, Tsume and Shibi were watching her do it as Kuromaru lounged against the railing. "Okay. Hime, what are you doing?"

"Writing my notice." The jinchuuriki finished with a flourish, putting the brush full of ink back wherever she had stored it. "And now we both have what we want."

_If she's not home, go next door._

While Natsumi had been decrypting the hurried handwriting, and taking apart the stasis seal around it in her head, Kushina got close enough to press a noisy kiss to her cheek. "Bye bye, have fun!"

"There is a lot I can do with that, Kushina-_hime!_"

"I'm looking forward to it!"

The assassin snorted when the last flicker of red hair disappeared out of sight, turning back to her unexpected guests. "If the two of you have some kind of clan problem, I'm kicking you to the Nara clan compound. Kami-sama _knows_ Shikaku-kun did more of that than I did."

"No we're… wait, what?"

"I believe this conversation should take place inside. Why? We have just come by to express our gratitude for allowing us to solve our own problems in time."

Natsumi clicked her tongue at them, unlocking her door and letting them into her own apartment. "Mmm kay? There really hadn't been a lot I did for you two, you had the problem in hand and feeling for the solution even before I was asked to take a look and later play mediator. Tea?"

"You may not think much of it, Natsumi. But we would have been passed over for promotion if you hadn't." The future head of her clan took a seat on the floor in front of her own couch, letting her nin-kin sprawl across her lap. "As is, we maybe got a suspension as chuunin for a few weeks until they get off their asses and confirm it."

Suffixes were not something the Inuzuka clan used much, seeing no point in them if everyone was pack. The only ones they titled -sama was the Hokage and their clan head. Although the assassin admitted it was now a little strange not to hear a tag on her name when not in the middle of a mission and if something was urgently needed from her.

But since the wild natured teen was settling down for the moment, Natsumi figured she did want the tea. Shibi nodded his agreement, either to the tea or the statement, the assassin couldn't figure that one out.

"And ya took us with you on mission even knowing what we're like."

Natsumi almost missed her stove top with the kettle. As it was it still gave a dull clang when the two pieces of metal collided. "What?"

"Hokage-sama must have lied to us about Natsumi-san being able to refuse to assist. Why? Her reaction speaks of surprise."

"Um, no. I just wasn't aware I _could_ have refused." At the two blank looks, and wow was _Shibi_ a master of that expression, the assassin gave them a flat stare in return. "AnBu, remember? We don't turn down missions. Ever."

Tsume looked a little ill, recalling that while it had been a mostly boring run around the greater parts of Fire Country and a few of the border states for them, it had been a strings of killings for her. "Oh shit, right."

"It is likely that Hokage-sama intended for you to assume so. Why? In order to secure your assistance."

"Yeah, you are able to refuse secondary missions if they're not your main specialty, Natsumi."

Well… you were supposed to learn something new every day. "Damn, thanks for telling me _now_." Natsumi waited until the two of them had taken a sip of tea. "So, this isn't to tell me you're madly in love and are expecting the first of many kids you want to name after me?"

Hmm… apparently it takes more than that to make an Aburame spit take, though Shibi did turn an interesting shade of pale green and flailed slightly. On the bright side Tsume got hers all over an unimpressed Kuromaru.

Well, it was a challenge to work on in her free time.

\V/

Sakumo had snatched her up and shunshined away, right in the middle of a conversation with Fugaku. If Jiraiya hadn't had such a habit of the same thing when he needed one of his students to make up excuses for him, Natsumi would have been a little more annoyed when the man put her down right in front of his home.

"I need you to watch them for me, Natsumi-chan. I've got a mission to deal with."

A pat on the head later, and the silver haired new father was gone. Judging by the frown on his face, taicho wasn't happy at the mission slotted for the moment his paternity leave ended.

Toeing off her ninja sandals by catching the clasps with her exposed toes, Natsumi placed her armful of Uchiha scrolls on a table close to the door and entered the Hatake clan home. Fugaku would send someone for them when it became apparent Sakumo wasn't returning her or them. "Eri-san?"

"In the kitchen!"

Following the sounds of the woman's voice and Kakashi's baby gurgles, which he was so getting teased over later when he was old enough to appreciate it, the assassin found the mother of her old AnBu captain's son making dinner. "What brings you by today, Natsumi-chan?"

"Taicho was pulled for a mission. He's tasked me with being his hands here until he's back." She probably didn't need to know about the 'watch' thing.

Eri sighed regretfully, but smiled softly at her fussing son before going back to the soup simmering on the stove and humming some lullaby to keep the newborn from crying.

There was a very good chance that the woman would have died in childbirth if Natsumi hadn't told Tsunade about her pregnancy before Sakumo panicked over her contractions and the blood. Even when married or living with ninjas, civilian women tended to continue going to civilian doctors for pregnancy and child birth. Apparently, according to Biwako later when the emergency was over, that wasn't a very good idea at all. Shinobi parents were much more likely to have ninja children, with chakra networks active sooner than most civilian born ninjas had, who only got around to unlocking their networks in the academy unless someone took interest in them and showed them how. Kakashi was exceptional in that regard, but he had almost unwittingly killed his mother trying everything he could to find a more comfortable position in an ever contracting space without a kunoichi midwife on hand to keep him from doing so.

Natsumi wasn't at all apologetic now about telling Tsunade about her taicho knocking up his girlfriend. Since that had let the two women meet and get to know each other before the little gaki decided he wanted out, and let the sannin realize the baby was a clan child, not an average ninja's, and all the complications that could have in the process. Her taicho had later cornered her and thanked her for spilling the beans to the Slug Princess about his girlfriend's condition, even if he had been less than appreciative at the time she had done so.

She wondered if that was the start of the end, her old captain's unknowing risk of Eri's life that eventually killed her. Was that the first crack in his confidence as a shinobi?

Natsumi stripped off her weaponry, piling it up on the floor next to her before extending a slightly calloused hand out to Kakashi, who was set up on the table in his little basket and waving his tiny fists at her. Eri looked over to them at the first clangs of metal, turning back when she realized the kunoichi was respecting her mandate of 'no weapons on your person when handling the baby'. The assassin was sure there was a story behind that, but Sakumo had changed the topic too fast for her to ask when it had been brought up the first time.

"Are you going to be joining me for dinner then, Natsumi-chan?"

"Probably. Do you mind if I go grab Minato-kun and Kushina-hime when Kashi-chan naps? I still don't really know what the two of them eat when I'm not there to cook for them. Scratch that, I know _exactly_ what Kushina-hime eats, and she doesn't need any more."

It really was possible to live off ramen if you vary it between flavors and added a few extra things, Kushina was living proof. Natsumi just wanted to cringe over the sodium intake of Konoha's jinchuuriki. Both of them.

(ooo000ooo)

After Eri sent both Kushina and Minato home, each with seconds of dinner in a bento box for tomorrow, Natsumi went around the compound once to check out the perimeter as the older woman gave the baby a bath.

The only thing that saved her life that night was Kakashi loudly laughing at something and the sound carrying out to her.

Natsumi turned her head to see if she could pick up the sound of what was amusing the baby so, and caught the sight of a tip of a sword being swung at the back of her neck. The assassin dropped forward, swinging a foot backwards as one of her hands went for a weapon. The blade sliced through her long hair, but she knocked the attacker forward onto her back and the kunai she never removed from under her left foot was firmly shoved back into the adult sized attacker's heart.

Rolling the man off her, and ignoring his blood seeping through her shirt, Natsumi leapt up onto the roof of the large house. She caught sight of another figure making its way silently to where the upper floor bathing room was, and cast her kinjutsu to alter how the supposed killer saw reality.

Fugaku, even without the Yin release hint, had been instrumental in helping her develop the assassination technique further than the double sight effect it had initially done. Natsumi had played around with the levels of Yin she used in Suna when taking the chuunin exams like he had suggested, though he had asked about varying amounts of chakra, and figured out how to make a target see what she wanted them too. This version of it skewed depth perception, not the flicker sight of paranoia the first one suggested. The would-be assassin wouldn't be able to throw right if its life depended on it.

Her next target realized something was wrong when she misjudged a step and knocked a few loose tiles together, cutting off the sound of Eri's voice as she talked to Kakashi.

Natsumi grabbed the neck of the woman and shoved her bloody kunai through to the heart again, before the would-be-assassin had the opportunity to do anything. Slowly lowering the heavily bleeding woman to the tiled roof, the AnBu assassin flared her chakra in the standard pattern for 'attack, backup needed'.

But the signal flare also alerted another assassin, the heavier footfalls of a male abandoned any attempt of surviving the mission and started slamming doors on the first floor, trying to find his targets. The duel eyed teen used the window Eri had left open to enter the bathroom where she was with baby Kakashi. The woman had already wrapped the wet two month old in a towel and held him securely in her arms, backing away from both the open window and the door to the hallway while trying to keep them both in her sight. She had to clap a free hand over her mouth at the appearance of the blood splattered teen her husband taught, who ignored that to station herself between her taicho's wife and the door to the hall.

That door was thrown open a few tense minutes later, but it wasn't a man she didn't know. Hatake Sakumo looked all three of them over quickly then gestured to the assassin. "Eri, stay here with Kakashi. Come on, Natsumi. We're hunting."

The teen-woman nodded and slid pass Jackal, who nodded back at her, and followed her taicho down into the living room. Sakumo had apparently made it home in time to catch her signal and to keep the third attacker from going any farther than he had, because the man was sliced clean in though in the main hallway.

"Damn, taicho. Remind me not to piss you off any time soon."

Sakumo only bared his teeth at the corpse, biting a thumb and flexing his fingers rapidly through hand signs before slamming a hand down on the floor. Natsumi had never seen the man summon his dogs before, the contract was too well known as belonging to the Hatake clan of Konoha for him to use it in AnBu, and watched the sequence avidly. A surge of chakra and an implosion of smoke answered, and a moment later an oddly dressed greyhound stood on all fours in the hall with them. The dog looked around and shook her head. "Assassins, pup? In your own den, even. What have you been up to?"

The silver haired man knelt down to her level, almost vibrating with anger. "If it hadn't been for my own little assassin, they would have killed my mate and pup, Aki-sama. I think there may have been another."

The greyhound looked straight at Natsumi and she was going to assume the dog smirked. The assassin had an uneasy feeling about what the look was supposed to mean if directed at her.

"Then let's not waste any time. Follow me."

(ooo000ooo)

There had been a fourth member of an Iwa assassination team, this one waiting outside the village for either the return of the assassin team or dawn's break to hightail it back to Earth Country. He wouldn't be doing that, as Sakumo, Aki, and Natsumi had eventually gotten around to knocking him out and handing the ninja over to T&I for processing… once they pried the man out of the greyhound's jaws and kept him from bleeding out.

Since neither master nor apprentice saw any sleep that night and dawn was staring to peek over the walls of the village, Sakumo simply grabbed the younger assassin and hauled her home with him after dismissing his summons' pack leader.

Eri and Kakashi had been moved to the master bedroom, according to Crow who was standing guard just inside of the compound walls, with Jackal guarding the hallway door. Natsumi thought she saw Monkey on the roof where the woman had been last night. They did pass Horse cleaning the hallway, who gave both benched AnBu members a backward wave as she scrubbed the blood out of the hardwood floors. Tiger was checking each room upstairs, dropping what he had been on and clearing out one of the guest bedrooms when Sakumo asked him too, and Lizard had been flickering around doing the same downstairs.

It was almost like being back in AnBu headquarters, even if the new Lizard was female, with the two squads Sakumo once looked after in the Second War keeping watch for them. Natsumi didn't even bother doing more that stripping out of the blood crusted clothing she had been wearing all night before collapsing into the bed.

\V/

Kushina was still fussing over her hair a week later.

"Honestly, hime. The only reason I never got around to cutting it was because there always were more interesting things to do." Natsumi pulled the now shoulder length mass up in a high tail. "It's more manageable this way."

"Yeah… but once we evened it out after that idiot hacked it off, you lost more of it." The jinchuuriki was clutching her own ruby red locks as if someone would come around and try to chop hers off. "I _liked_ your long hair, dattebane."

Minato, who had been unfortunately forced to listen to the two kunoichi about hair length for the last half hour since they were camped out on his couch, rolled his eyes. "And sempai puts it up nearly on a daily basis, Kushina-chan. It seems more practical like that."

The Uzumaki threw a glare his way. "Are you saying you think my hair isn't practical?"

"No! Just… that for _sempai_ it seemed practical. Your hair looks good the way you have it." Natsumi's fellow orphan backpedaled hurriedly, dropping the inky brush he had been holding to wave his hands in front of him to suggest the other teen had taken his comment wrong. "It looks… um, pretty?"

"And now you're suggesting I'm more concerned over how my hair looks than how practical it is." Kushina huffed exasperatedly and got up. "I'll see you later, Natsumi-chan."

The assassin hid a grin and waved goodbye to the other chuunin, looking back just in time to see Minato clap a hand over his eyes and groan.

"I'll never understand girls."

"Well… that's not a _girl_, kouhai. She's a _teenager_."

The blond peered at her between his ink stained fingers. "Very funny. Why are you here, anyways? Aren't you usually learning how to swing a sword now?"

"Taicho wanted family time with Eri-san and Kashi-chan after the scare last week, and I'm really hiding from Fugaku-sama for a little while. He's not happy with me." Since she had both forgotten to have either of the others return his clan scrolls that night and to alert the Uchiha Police Station about the assassination attempt. Natsumi could understand the first part, hell she wasn't happy about not returning the scrolls. The Police wouldn't have been alerted even if they had the time to do it between keeping Eri and Kakashi alive and finding the fourth idiot, so there.

The assassin then started to sniff theatrically, pouting over to the fuuinjutsu user. "Do you not like me too, kouhai? I'll leave if you want me to."

Minato gave a weak laugh, dropping his hand to pick up his brush again, scanning the fuuinjutsu seals laid out so he could work on them spread over his table. "Wouldn't Fugaku-san come here first to find you? This is a little obvious, sempai."

Natsumi shrugged, falling back onto the couch and stretching out. "Eh... I'm not going to put that much effort into hiding from him. He's not that scary. Sides, you can take him." Even with ink on his face, though the streaks were kind funny.

"Your faith in my skills is astounding." The blond deadpanned back. "Go bother someone else."

"Ooh… _permission_."

Minato's eyes widened and he turned around to face his open door. "No! _Wait_… saa, someone's going to kill me."

(ooo000ooo)

Shikaku looked pale under his tan when he saw her behind his front door.

Natsumi's ninja senses were tingling. Something was up. "Shikaku-kun? Something wrong?"

"_Get me out of here_." The Nara heir hissed, gripping the assassin's arm tightly as he drew her inside.

Aikido beamed at the female friend her son had brought into the living room. "Hello, Natsumi-chan. Was there something you wanted?"

"I have to steal Shikaku-kun for a few. Someone attacked taicho last week and he wants his security layout looked over."

Shikai gave them both a knowing look over his wife's head, shooing them both out with a lazy wave when the woman looked over at him to see if it was alright. "Scram then. Be back by evening, son."

The shadow master wasted no time in leaving, something highly unusual for anyone in the Nara clan. Natsumi kept her mouth shut until they passed the clan walls. "And now for the real reason I played extractor? Cause I have to say, there are fees for this kind of thing."

"Kaa-chan wants to arrange a marriage for me, since apparently I'm too lazy to find a wife." Sighing, Shikaku ran a hand over the back of his neck. "There's nothing wrong with Yoshino-san, really. She's… okay. Just, I can't see myself living with her."

The assassin hummed, turning that over her head as the two of them headed somewhere the Nara was leading them to.

The scare with Eri and Kakashi had left her wondering if she had assumed wrong about Sakumo's reasoning for his suicide, and had her carefully looking over her time here to see if there had been any other misconceptions because there seemed to be a lot in the series of events she had put together for her taicho. If Eri had survived the birth even without Natsumi's meddling, she would have been weakened a lot from the bleeding and dealing with a newborn baby. If Natsumi hadn't been with the two of them when the older man had been on mission, they might have been able to kill her before anyone knew about the attack. Their targets didn't include a newborn baby, though, and T&I was operating on the conclusion that Iwa hadn't heard about the birth of the man's son yet for the reason why. Sakumo already disliked Earth Country a lot for going after his wife, what would the older Hatake's feelings be like if they _had_ killed Eri and were about to do the same to Kakashi? So if the Iwa ninjas managed to kill the weakened wife of the last Hatake, but miss the baby, would that have pissed her taicho off enough to gain the moniker of Konoha's White Fang? Would he gain that title since Eri and Kakashi were fine?

Now Shikaku raised this problem up. Marriage for shinobi in this generation didn't really go hand in hand with liking the other person, usually it ended up being because there was a child involved or someone was arranged for it. Love wasn't something specifically sought out by sane ninja, because that was one hell of a weakness to have and most didn't have the lifespan for that search to take. If they had the time to get to know someone it was because they were ninjas too, or because they were stuck together for the purpose of procreation. Natsumi had thought her friends were, at the very least, okay with whoever they ended up with. Like Fugaku and Mitoko, who respected each other and got along well, Hizashi and his fellow Hyuuga girl, who were tolerant of the arranged match and each other, or Sakumo and Eri, who genuinely liked the other and were getting to the point of affectionate caring. Minato and Kushina were exceptions to that hard and fast rule, even the assassin could see the beginnings of _something_ developing there, and had assumed everyone else would end up with maybe a lesser degree of that in time. Konoha was easing out of that mindset, by the next generation it wouldn't be until fifteen or twenty that the clans would _start_ thinking about continuing the bloodlines with longer lifespans to consider, but right now most clans were looking into appropriate partners for their heirs. Only recently were there couples that waited longer than that to get together and start on the next generation.

"Who _do_ you see yourself living with?" Natsumi asked idly, still turning the problem around in her head. Had Shikaku ended up an alcoholic with this girl? She couldn't recall ever seeing the clan head of the next generation without some kind of alcohol nearby. Had he really been that miserable with his arranged wife to try and find something to numb the days with? Alcohol wasn't something used by shinobi a lot, and definitely not on a daily basis. It dulled too many needed skills and senses for ninja to really like being drunk or even tipsy.

"You."

Natsumi tripped.

The shadow user caught her before she hit the ground. "What?"

"Me?" No squeaking. Nope, not her.

"Well… yeah. You're not predictable." The heir of the Nara clan eyed her suspiciously. "And sometimes you can keep up with me. Which is better than most of the people I deal with."

"… I'm not really all that _sane_, Shikaku!"

The teen snorted as he let her go when the assassin found her feet. "Sanity's overrated. Yeah, we've got rational thinking. You've got tangents and angles to work with, and _damn_ do you work them. Besides, who in the shinobi corps can you call completely _sane?_"

Shutting her mouth fast enough to click her teeth together, Natsumi had to give him that one.

"Besides, kaa-chan's really been after me to ask you about this. She's still planning the wedding in her head, has been since the academy and I brought you two over."

_Stop_… wait. "Was she planning on Minato-kun too? Cause that's kinda weird."

Shikaku blinked, jaw open to counter whatever next objection she had. He shut his mouth after a stunned moment, and started laughing.

"What? He's like my little brother. Incest is _wrong!_"

The Nara snorted and tugged her into a hug. "Since there wasn't anything else you brought up, I take it you don't mind?"

No, her brain hamster was going in panicky little circles and couldn't get anything coherent enough to use back to her. Natsumi inhaled deeply, trying to get her heart to settle down from _oh shit_ level of activity to _what the hell_. "Are you sure? I mean… I'm a kunoichi, my head hasn't been okay since I was five here, and there are so many ways I can think of for this to go wrong." _What about Shikamaru?_

"Yes, shinobi, don't care in the slightest, and we'll work it out."

"… You're telling Minato-kun, Sakumo-taicho, and Jiraiya-sensei."

"You're _mean_."

"_You're_ marrying me."

(ooo000ooo)

Minato stared at them, the ink still streaked across his face. "You know, sempai, when I told you to _bother someone else_… I didn't mean for you to _go out and find a husband_."

The only thing Natsumi could do was shrug uselessly, still not too sure how they ended up here in this situation. "Two birds, meet one stone? It occupied some time, didn't it?"

Shikaku snickered.

"_Right_…" Her fellow orphan switched targets, now staring down the no longer smirking shadow user. "Excuse us a moment, sempai. Shikaku and I need to have some words."

The assassin wordlessly turned and went back out the door, shutting it firmly behind her. Not interested in the least to hearing her kouhai threaten her fiancée's body parts and wellbeing if she wasn't treated right.

Well… that had gone well.

Now just taicho was left, sensei had to get back to the village first before he could be told.

Was she sure she wanted to do this? She could be wrong for the reason Shikaku picked up a bottle.

(ooo000ooo)

"You sure do get up to some interesting things when not training, Natsumi-chan."

The assassin shrank a little under Sakumo's raised eyebrows. "Sorry, taicho."

Eri whacked her husband on the arm with her free hand, the one not cradling Kakashi. "Hush you. Congratulations, Natsumi-chan!"

She couldn't help the small smile inching across her lips when the woman beamed at her happily. If there was anything the assassin was thankful for, it was that Eri hadn't been scared of her after seeing the aftermath of what she had done to other living people in order to defend her and her son that night. Natsumi had held worries to that effect the day she woke up after the attack, but the woman had hugged her, bloodstained clothing and all, and thanked her for protecting them.

Kami-sama bless hidden village civilians.

"Thanks, Eri-san."

Next to her, Shikaku was glaring at the older man for whatever reason. Had she missed something? Taicho looked satisfied, so that was possible.

"I'll talk to Shikai-sama about the marriage contracts." Sakumo finally grinned at the two of them, one canine peeking out from one side of his mouth. "Since I _am_ still your legal guardian."

_Ooh_… right. No wonder Shikaku hadn't argued telling the men of her life what he wanted from her even if it meant facing a protective Minato. Sneaky.

(ooo000ooo)

Mikoto peered over at the assassin and the shadow user, who were talking to the six year old Nawaki about ninja specialties in the Senju clan compound. "Well, that's working out well."

"I think Shikaku-kun would have been the only one who wouldn't have gotten hung up about her past life, dattebane." Kushina nodded firmly, still smirking. "Besides, they both can now have those confusing conversations about theoretical things and war tactics on their own time."

Inoichi had his face firmly buried in his hands. "I'm claiming amnesia if anyone asks me, just so you both know." Setting up one of his friends and his old genin teammate was probably the lowest point he could see using what the misplaced soldier taught him on her. He was still mostly sure Shikaku had seen through most of it himself, but the tactical genius had apparently seen something he wanted so the teen went along with Inoichi's arguments about what was probably best for Natsumi.

Scoffing at him, the Uzumaki flicked her hair over her shoulder and faced him. "You know Shikaku-kun wouldn't have been very happy with the Chuunin Corps kunoichi his parents were thinking about. And Natsumi-chan probably never would have gotten around to finding someone with all her work between Sakumo-sama and AnBu, if that's kinda the same thing that happened in her last life. This way they both are happy."

"_Can_ a Yamanaka get amnesia?" The Uchiha genjutsu specialist mused aloud, tapping her lips with the pads of her fingers. "I always thought your clan was mostly immune to those kinds of things."

The heir of the mind walker clan drew himself upright, glowering at the two kunoichi. "I have nothing to say to that, and I'm going over there next to Chouza-kun now."

Mikoto smiled as Kushina finally burst into the giggles she had been holding back since the arrangement between the Nara clan and Hatake clan, on Mesuji Natsumi's behalf, had been announced. "I still have no clue how you got him to help us."

Her best friend sobered up enough to give her a serious look for a whole moment. "Like Natsumi-chan says, blackmail is such a wonderful thing. Did you know Inoichi-kun is seeing a girl from Intelligence? Ran- something, I think."

\V/

Jiraiya came back to the village one year after he left, to check in with his Hokage and his students before going back out. The Toad Sage was more than a little bemused at the changes that had happened since he had been gone.

Four month old Kakashi was seated in Natsumi's lap, trying to see if the rubber kunai his father had given him would break skin if he stabbed hard enough with it. The assassin was pretty sure she would be getting a bruise right there when the near toddler stopped.

"And the assassins?"

"Iwa. Taicho's not at all happy with anything coming out of Earth Country at the moment."

Humming his understanding, the sannin eyed the almost toddler in her lap. "So when did this happen?"

"While we were out in Suna for the chuunin exams." Natsumi gave her sensei a lopsided smirk. "Taicho knocked up his girlfriend. It really was something I was more expecting to hear about you, sensei."

Jiraiya scoffed, puffing himself upright. "_I_ don't make that kind of mistake, neko-chan."

"You mean you haven't… _yet_." The assassin quickly pointed at the baby. "Kashi-chan's here, can't hit me."

Kakashi obligingly giggled to himself, giving up on drawing blood for the moment and sticking the ring end of the kunai into his mouth to gum. The Toad Sage rolled his eyes, crossing his arms over his chest. "Who made that one up?"

"I did." Eri shot the white haired man a look from the hallway. "Who is this, Natsumi-chan?"

"Jiraiya of the Sannin, Eri-san. Also known as the Toad Sage and a Super Pervert in some circles. He's taicho's friend and my old sensei." The assassin ignored the protest of being called old from the man, grinning up at the woman who married her old AnBu captain. "Are you done shopping?"

Having already known the teenager her husband taught swordsmanship to wouldn't let anything that could harm either her or her son into the house without blood being shed, Eri simply nodded to show she had heard of the man when she put together the white haired pervert she had heard a bit about already and one third of the _Densetsu_ _no_ _Sannin_. "Would either of you like some tea?"

"I won't be staying for long, miss. So no, thank you." The Toad Sage eyed the woman as she left the two of them with the baby. "I can see why Sakumo went for her. Indomitable, isn't she?"

Natsumi made a rude sound in her sensei's direction. "She was fine with me killing two of those Iwa idiots the night they tried to kill her and Kashi-chan. There isn't much I've seen so far that throws Eri-san off her stride."

He shot her a look, smirking finally and changing the subject. "So, I've heard a little about you as well, neko-chan. A little whisper about a ghost eyed assassin in a cat mask going around Moss Country?"

Natsumi groaned and slumped, taking one hand that had been bracing Kakashi upright to cover her eyes. "Those rumors are still going? I swear, I'm going to find whoever started them and give him an _Avenging Ancestor_ to worry about."

"I hear the first few versions out between Tea and Rain, but the subject matter has changed a bit from the first sightings before I started heading back." Jiraiya snickered, running a hand over his jaw at the teen-woman's predicament. "I don't think you have much to worry about, as long as you keep yourself from being seen again. But still, you have to admit it's appropriate."

"That's what Minato-kun said about it, too. The two of you think so alike sometime that it's scary." So the Toad Sage was now currently in Ame teaching three more orphans? Good to know.

"Alright, one more question and I'll go find where my wayward apprentice is hiding out." Jiraiya drew his copy of her marriage contract out of his bag. "Sakumo sent this to me by his summons. You sure about this, Natsumi-chan? Nothing says you have to get married anytime soon."

The assassin smirked faintly at the roll of papers. "I can't stand the larger clans and the way they nose into everything, despite what Fugaku-sama assumed I'd be doing once I was old enough. This is… comfortable, I think is the word I want. Shikaku-kun and I have known each other for a long while, and the Naras aren't as fussy as the more combat oriented shinobi clans."

As a matter of fact, the Nara clan was as excited to have her as anything else they ever got excited about. Fugaku had gotten her comprehension speed tested against an Uchiha's sharingan once, when they were more than a little stumped on her jutsu method and just a little bored trying to find something else to look in to. It apparently was something a lot of the R&D ninja did when at loose ends, according to Orochimaru-sama. She had barely passed the first test and failed the second when shown pictures in rapid sequence and having to identify where what object was in them, by keeping up with a sixteen year old chuunin MP with the first level of the sharingan active then when the eye was in the second stage, but the fact of the matter was _she had passed without the bloodline_. The Naras figured that with her comprehension speed and Shikaku's tactical intelligence, the next generation wouldn't be able to go wrong. Natsumi wasn't so sure about that, but she had been forced to accept some things were not turning out as she thought they might so she was now going along with that. But she was sure the comprehension was from another life of watching for enemy movement or acquiring targets in fast moving vehicles, and not something she would be able to pass onto any kid they might have.

So, nervous about how the next generation was going to turn out, yes. _What was going to happen to Shikamaru?_ Uneasy about getting married, no. It was _Shikaku_ after all.

The Hyuuga and Uchiha clan might be slightly annoyed with her for the moment, and she hadn't known being friends with the head of one and the heir of another made you a common topic of discussion and speculation before, but Fugaku had gotten over himself to congratulate Shikaku last week and the twins had been mostly accepting of her decision from the start. Seriously, she thought it was a little creepy that elders she had maybe meet a few times had been talking about her possible dating life. Finding out Kushina was another much talked about kunoichi had been hilarious, though. The red head still went beet red when anyone brought up the Uchiha elders. Minato also had his own admirers in every clan, much to his own dismay. The evening she told him about it he had repeatedly hit his table with his forehead muttering about fan girls.

She and Minato were more acceptable to the larger clans because they were orphans and shinobi, a kind of fresh blood and new talent for the larger clans that encouraged keeping bloodlines within the clan. While the elders of the clans wouldn't really care for civilian born ninjas, because then they would have to deal with their civilian families, orphan shinobi were still the favored picks if you had to marry outside a clan. Fugaku had wanted to add her comprehension to the Uchihas' sharingan, but he forgot to inform her of that. Not that Natsumi ever saw herself in one of the noble clans in the near or far future, they had more rules and regulations about how to dress and how to act than she really wanted to think about.

But trust the Toad Sage to play devil's advocate. "Comfortable? That's not really what you should be looking for in someone you'll spend the rest of your life..."

Jiraiya trailed off at her raised eyebrow, grimacing to show he realized what she was hinting at with the nonverbal clues about how exactly her life had gone by once already. Eri was listening in, after all. You didn't spend a lot of time with ninjas without learning to be a little sneaky yourself just to keep up.

He leveled a finger in her face and wiggled it. "We'll continue this later then, neko-chan. Tell your taicho I'll be here for… uh, Eri-san?"

The woman bustled back into the room with a tea tray, smiling broadly at the three of them. "Yes, Jiraiya-sama?"

"Just Jiraiya, please. Would you mind if I came back for dinner?" The white haired man scratched the back of his head, getting used to the idea of one of his good friends being married and with a son.

"Of course you can come for dinner. Should I find where Natsumi-chan hid the sake as well?" Eri was still smiling, but it looked more like a smirk if you tilted your head to the side and squinted.

At the sannin's incredulous look, the assassin shrugged. "It's still in the cupboard, Eri-san. I just put it under a genjutsu that made taicho think it was baby powder."

"So that's why he never remembers to get any."

(ooo000ooo)

"You realize you don't _have_ to do this marriage thing, right?"

"You realize you've _asked_ that three times now, right sensei?"

Jiraiya huffed and rolled his eyes at her, grumbling under his breath about stubborn cats and biological clocks. The two of them were waiting on Minato, who had taken the reappearance of their old sensei and his fuuinjutsu master with as much excitement as the assassin had ever seen out of her kouhai their entire lives so far. Well, his anyways.

The blond future Yondaime had insisted the both of them go to the team's old training field, while he fetched Kushina and set up to show them something he had been working on. So the two of them were sitting under a tree in Training Ground Three, talking about the same topic they had been on since they left the Hatake clan compound.

"Do… do you think it's a bad idea?" Natsumi asked slowly, trying to place her feelings about the older looking man's seeming concern over her impending marriage. "I know you haven't really had the time to get to know me when you taught me for half a year and have been out of the village for a full one right after… but I still do want to hear what you think about this."

The Toad Sage shot the teenager-woman a sideways look, once she didn't see because the assassin was staring off into space with a furrowed brow. The man hummed lowly, sorting his thoughts out and the impressions he had taken of her. "I think it may not matter in a few years, you'll come to like the Nara gaki just fine. I'm just concerned you're jumping the bit too fast, neko-chan. Why not look around for a year or so before agreeing?"

"So, you have commitment issues. Nice to know." Natsumi laughed as the man spluttered out a series of choked coughs. "We've got until we both make tokubetsu jounin to decide if we're staying and tying the knot or breaking it off. There's wiggle room, sensei."

Not entirely surprised when the AnBu dodged the swipe at her head, the sannin settled back against his tree with a scowl aimed at her cheeky grin. "Fine. If you know what you're doing I'll sign the contract for you. Brat."

The assassin's grin faded, turning into a softer smile. "Thanks."

Jiraiya snorted, crossing his arms over his broad chest. "For what? A bit of ink on some paper? You need your head checked, neko-chan."

"I've needed that checked out for _years_, sensei, but the last time I did so I accidently threw Inoichi-kun out of my head with a _nasty_ memory of what being gutted feels like. I'll skate by with how I am, thanks."

"I'll give you that." They sat in silence for a while, both thinking just what kind of damage the misplaced soldier might have in her head. "Why did Minato-kun want you out here, anyways? I didn't know you were interested in fuuinjutsu."

_Interested isn't the word I would use, sensei._ "I'm interested in Summoning Contracts, not the rest of it. So I know a bit." Natsumi quirked a smirk at the raised eyebrow. "I needed another goal after AnBu, sensei. So… Summoning Contracts."

"You trying for any animal in particular?"

"I think taicho wants to pass the Dogs on to his son, or I would have asked him." The assassin hummed, playing with a blade of grass as she thought. "I know I want something sort of like the Dogs, though. Something I can use when I get over my head, like when the Iwa assassins came after Eri-san and Kashi-chan. I could have used _something_ to fetch backup without alerting the last one going through the main floor, even if they weren't combat usable."

"Toads?"

"No offence, but _hell_ no. I think Minato-kun might kill me."

"Slugs?"

"Should go to a medic."

"Don't tell me you want the Snakes."

"One word, sensei. _Creepy_."

Laughing at that slight to his reclusive teammate, the man tried another few that were all shot down as either belonging to a clan already or another variation of the word creepy. The whisper whistle of something sharp and metal thrumming its way through air reached the both of them minutes into the exchange, and their heads snapped up just in time to see the missing blond appear and catch something in a flash of light. Minato then promptly flailed in midair, losing his way and needing rescuing by the Toad Sage.

_Hiraishin_. Minato had put together his Flying Thunder God technique while she had been off killing people and babysitting a baby. Damn blonds.

Jiraiya set his apprentice on the ground near Natsumi, checking over the blond for anything missing before getting irritated. "What the _hell_ was that?"

"Shunshin in a seal, sensei." Minato panted, one hand over his heart. "It's… a lot harder because you can't _see_ where you're going, but it's not only faster but _instant_."

"You're using the kunai I gave you for your birthday for it?" Ah, history. Hello to you too.

The blond threw her a wide grin, still thrilled with the success of surprising the both of them. "Yep, with the seal wrapped around the handle, gives you a target to aim for when you activate it long range with a component chakra seal trigger. Doing it in midair is easier than trying to use a stationary target."

"Landing issues?" The assassin asked knowingly, it would explain the number of scuff marks and scratches her kouhai had been getting over the last couple of months when he hadn't been sparring. "If you're using a seal intended or like the one for teleportation between dimensions similar to a Summons Contract, how much of a problem is situating the area of summoning around a general target giving you? Is that why you're doing it in midair right now?"

Minato acquired a bit of a blush under his flush of success. "Not really similar to a Summons Contract, it's a space-time compression seal I had Kushina-chan check out with me before any testing on my end, styled after one like sensei uses. It basically removes the space between you and the seal, if you're the one to arm it. But kinda on the landings. I think it's more an orientation problem than location or trajectory. I was hoping I could use you as a test subject, sempai. To see if it's a comprehension fix, reaction time, or just one flaw you needed to get used to."

"I see you know more than just a bit, Natsumi-chan." Jiraiya interjected archly, causing both of his students to blush. "Let me look at that seal, Minato-kun."

The blond handed over the three pronged kunai, still unable to rid himself of his grin. The assassin thought that was fair, he must have been working on it the entire time the Toad Sage had been gone from the village. She wondered how much of his time she had wasted by sitting on his couch and verbally poking him.

The sannin eventually handed it back, first the metal kunai then the seal paper, shaking his head exasperatedly at the both of them. "The stuff you gakis get up to when I'm gone. Next you'll tell me Inoichi-kun has been selected to be the next Hokage."

Natsumi coughed into her hand. "We thought you knew, sensei."

At the man's gaping expression, her kouhai started snickering. "No, Inoichi-kun's not taking over the village, sensei."

"He's doing a hostile takeover T&I, actually." The assassin finished for him with a nod.

Jiraiya blinked, expecting a rebuttal that didn't come from his other student because it was technically true. "What?"

Minato shot his sempai a look to get her to quiet down. "He's rewriting a lot of the interrogation manuals, sensei. There is no hostile takeover."

"Yet."

The blond opened his mouth, and then shut it. He couldn't disagree with that either given his fellow blond's temperament. "Yet."

The Toad Sage eyed the both of them. "I don't think I want to know."

"Wise man."

"Shut _up_, sempai."

\V/

"So another half a year?"

"There about." Sakumo rubbed his jaw while the Toad Sage poured him another saucer of sake. He was still wondering where it had come from, he had been _sure_ Eri threw out what he had before the wedding. "I would like to keep her nearby until Kashi-chan can hide himself if anything happens, maybe a full year more. But Natsumi-chan doesn't have that long left on her apprenticeship, and there is only so far I can stretch teaching her. She picks up on a lot of it just by watching me."

The white haired sannin sighed, looking up at the stars peeking out of the darkening sky. "I'm hoping to be out for another few years, but that doesn't sound likely from the rumblings I'm hearing coming from the other hidden villages. Tell neko-chan you want her around for that last half a year after she's done, I can guarantee you she'll stick around longer than that if you make it clear what you want."

"You can, huh?"

"Hey, she was my student."

"She's my subordinate."

"So true." Jiraiya hummed, giving his friend a sideways look. "How are you feeling, about the attempt on your wife?"

"Pissed. But I'm sure Natsumi-chan told you that." Sakumo gave his friend a half-hearted glare, who didn't even had the grace to look sheepish. "It's just… if Natsumi-chan hadn't _been_ there that night, Eri might not be alive. Kakashi too. I mean, they almost got _her_ just before trying to kill my wife. Did a number on her hair, though, even if she ducked in time."

"Natsumi-chan doesn't care about her hair, Sakumo. I asked her about it, and she said she had been thinking of a cut, anyways."

"Damn odd kunoichi, that one."

Jiraiya snorted, thinking of how right his friend was without knowing the half of it. "Odd maybe… but a damn good one."

"That," the silver haired man raised his saucer in salute, "goes without saying."


	5. Of Fuuinjutsu and Oversights

**Disclaimer : **I own... a cough, an addiction to nicotine, and a limp. You can have them all, free of cost.

**Rating** : We've got some suggestion in this... but nothing concrete yet. Maybe a high T, low M for this chapter, will be changing to a solid M for the next part.

**Author's Note : **I'm running out of ideas for titles. I have one more... and I don't think this will be done in one more part. Mmm... well, I'll think of something. The ages of the kids I am sorry about, I had intended to go back and fit them in once I worked out who was what age and I posted before I fixed that up. If it helps, Minato was thirteen to fourteen in the last part, fourteen to sixteen here, and I'll go back and fill it all in once we finish moving to Atlanta, Georgia. I also forgot to write reviewer replies to the readers of **Deus ex**, so if you submitted something I'll be going through the actual reviews and sending pms out about your questions in a little less than a week's time... or more. Maybe.

Also, it's possible to have the pads of your fingers eaten away by a mix of bleach and oxy-clean. Ow.

**Matron** : Hello again lovely. Most of your questions are answered here but for the drinking ninja's thing. So the way I'm thinking of that would be that Tsunade was the one to dream it up, seeing as she would have the medical knowhow and a very good reason to figure it out in a hurry. Being drunk when getting attacked would not be a good thing, after all.

**lyris** **musetta** : I've gone back and switched that over, Yoshino is now a chuunin of the chuunin corps. I never knew there was an actual rank for her, I only knew her name. And yeah, that's probably how Shikamaru will turn out if Natsumi survives long enough.

**Oplindenfep **: ... How did you come up with your handle? I'm curious. And yes, the summary and picture need changing, but the summary was suitable for the original premise of this story and the picture is actually my profile pic. I'm still thinking on a new summary, and I found a pic of Minato and Kushina I want to use for the story I just need the time to upload it and size it to fit.

**TheSpiceOfLife-Insanity** : It's okay, I haven't been reading any of the fics I like to read too lately, a bit busy between cleaning and packing to move and writing when I have a second. As to how the story is written... it's all cold. I have nothing more than a few points, a vague outline for the Naruto storyline, and it comes when it does. I actually love throwing Natsumi around to screw with the other's heads... but I think Chouza needs more love here. It's hard to because the kid and now young man never has a problem, he just likes her cooking and lets her use him like a human shield when she needs it to hide from the ones she annoys with her screwing around.

**monophonic** **: **I hadn't thought of it at all until I looked back and realized Shikaku ended up near Natsumi a lot. So... thanks? You saw it probably faster than I did. Eri is... actually very important, you'll see what I mean near the end.

**Mybffisazombie **: It really was the only place I could see for her, somewhere in the Shika-Ino-Cho trio since the wives weren't all that well known, if you take in that the _really_ good one is already taken and the others were with a highly strict shinobi clan. Shikaku might not have been drinking for that reason... but hey. And yeah, the moment she misses something major and horrible things happen is one I'm not looking forward to writing, and I sort of know where it's coming up.

**Junkie** : Give me a heart attack, why don't you. :P

**Unknown Variable** : Depends on how long Natsumi can survive, because the two of them seem to have the potential for it now that I look at more of them together. I'm still not sure if she's dying in the Third War, sometime after, or if she's going to grow into that crazy old cat lady of the Nara clan.

**narutosuck **:... I've just been spammed... I think. I can't decide if I'm irritated or amused.

**Nianque** : Because Natsumi doesn't really want one. All the answers she gave Jiraiya about the contracts already in the village was either 'someone else's' or 'creepy'. The excuse was that she was learning some fuuinjutsu because she was thinking of signing one, not because she wants to know how Minato learned enough to do what he did to Naruto and how to stop it. And before even that... I had no idea that's how the Toad Sage found the contract. I've added that information in here, but I really was blindsided by that fact half way through... so full credit goes to you for the cannon summoning information.

**LilPurrfection** : You reviewed just before I posted. That's kinda cool. As for **Silver Queen**'s **Dreaming of Sunshine** it's probably the only first person narrated fic I can stand to read, and I love it. She's done a hell of a lot more in preparation of writing a fic like this, probably, but that was one of the main inspirations for this. I just wanted something even farther back than the Konoha's Rookie Eleven's childhoods to read for once.

Five minutes of fame each for **Vaughn Tyler**, **XRaiderV1**, _hey_... I know you, **Thrill-Pair-All-The-Way**, and my other **Guest** for the cheering this part on. Thank you lovelies.

* * *

**Part Five: Of Fuuinjutsu and Oversights**

_If you see something as blue, how do you know that specific color is what another sees at the same time as you?_

_Maybe in what you see as blue another sees what you would have perceived as green in with their eyes. It would account for some of the fashion ideas that have become popular lately._

* * *

Minato handed her one of his kunai with a grin. He had already shown her how it worked and walked her through the process a few times, all that was left was a field test to troubleshoot the issues he was having with the seal array.

Natsumi took it, weighing it in her hand to get a feel for both the weight of the metal and how much chakra this phase of testing was going to need. The seal was wrapped around the handle in place of the leather that usually was used there, and the assassin made a mental note to get her kouhai some bleached vellum to replace the expensive paper. But the fuuinjutsu seemed to only need a little chakra, depending on how much you pushed into it the kunai would summon you to it only when it hit the very end of that amount you armed it with.

In the one Minato gave Kakashi just after the then teenager's jounin promotion, there must have been a trigger component set to trip a chakra storage secondary seal when it was thrown with chakra assisted muscles and some of that energy leaked into the seal and tripped it. Unless he completely changed the layout of the hiraishin seal between now and then, which was just as likely as keeping a working seal and improving it. From what seal work Minato had shown her, Kushina, and Jiraiya last night, there would be space to work temporary versions in when the blond fourteen year old refined his seal a little and possibly comprehensive ones if refined further than that, but the seal was still a crude approximation of what he intended it for. It would probably undergo a lot of revision before Minato ever used it in a fight.

Checking the training grounds they were at to make sure she both knew where she wanted to go and that the way was clear, Natsumi nodded her readiness to Jiraiya and the few others gathered to watch the test of Minato's seal, and then threw the three pronged kunai in an arched trajectory high overhead.

The misplaced soldier had barely a breath to wait before the seal activated in midair, pulling her to it like a lodestone with whiplash force in the blink of an eye. Snatching the kunai now suddenly within reach of her hand, she threw it a few more times to test her orientation upon arrival before throwing it back behind her to where she assumed Minato was still standing in her mental map of the training field. The second jerk of her reality wasn't any better than the first nor were the consecutive flashes of scenery any easier to get used to, and she would have some skinned knees from the slide upon landing near where she started.

Dizzily Natsumi gasped for breath, staggering in a half circle and she latched onto her kouhai when he came into her shaky view for the questionable stability he gave her world. "That's freaking _awesome_."

"Sometimes I worry about you, sempai." Minato worriedly eyed her lopsided grin, guiding her to sit down under a tree for support. "We only needed a test or two, not _five in a row_."

Somehow Tsunade was right there next to the blond seal user, running glowing green hands over her chest and head. The black spots in her vision cleared until she could see the worried frown on the woman's face, and the fuzz that had been in her head and confusing her thoughts disappeared. "Asphyxia, right now she's just light headed. Natsumi-chan mustn't have been breathing for a short while even with the burst of high activity taking place, and didn't anticipate it to keep it from occurring before jumping in with both feet."

"Couple of problems I can see so far, kouhai." Natsumi got out between deep breaths, taking steps to bring her blood-oxygen levels up and get rid of the prickle feeling in her fingers and toes. "Breathing, one. If you try to use it more than once you're going to need a good idea of where you are before tossing one again, two. Three, something in the summoning part needs refinement or you'll end up with some serious stress injuries later on. It's a bit overpowered, you don't need that much force to summon yourself through chakra, apparently."

"I can agree with that, you've nearly pulled a few tendons away from the bone, girl." The Slug Princess growled at them, still scowling at how the teenage kunoichi had risked herself even if she admitted the test idea was a good one and attended as the emergency medic on hand. "Nothing active from you for the rest of the day after I heal it, and come back and see me before trying anything else tomorrow. Medic's orders."

Natsumi just gave the medical prodigy turned sannin a limp wave, not intending to move at all for the rest of the day anyways. "Cool. I plan on napping the day away then."

Jiraiya checked his female teammate's expression before nodding to his old female student. "Good work, Natsumi-chan. Minato-kun, you'll have to test it again after I leave, but try to work on those points before you do."

Her kouhai nodded firmly, blinking when the blonde sannin pointed a finger in his face before he could twitch farther than that. "But first I'm checking you out too, Blondie. If you've done the same crap without proper supervision you've probably got the same problems. Same thing as Natsumi-chan if so, nothing for the rest of the day and come back to be checked out before continuing this hair brained scheme."

Natsumi's attention was distracted from the two of the three actual blondes in her life when Sakumo's heavy hand landed on her head. "You feeling okay, neko-chan?"

"Mmm, dizzy. And tired, taicho. But I think that's from the healing." The assassin peered up at him through his long fingers. "Can I go home, or does Tsunade-sama want me supervised?"

"You're good to go home, Natsumi-chan." The busty blonde woman caught the last of her comment after threatening Minato with dire consequences for trying anything like this on his own again. "If you're that worried though, you can either sit with her or stick her fiancée with her until she falls asleep, Sakumo-sama."

"I think I'll stick with her anyways, Tsunade-sama." Shikaku hauled the still woozy kunoichi upright, frowning at how much she had to lean on him just to stay upright. "Cause I don't think I'd trust her to walk in a straight line at the moment."

"Bull." The AnBu snorted as she let herself slump into the teen behind her. Why the hell was she standing, anyways? There was a perfectly good tree right there. "You just want into my bed, admit it."

Humming, the Nara heir tried to keep the smirk from pulling his lips up and failed spectacularly. "Maybe."

Minato slapped his hands over his ears and glared at them both, turning slightly green around the edges. "I don't need to _know_ that!"

His voice was kinda funny when it cracked with puberty. Unfortunately, Natsumi only heard it crack when she made him uncomfortable.

Jiraiya became the target of one suddenly pissed Slug Princess' ire, and Sakumo inched away from his paling friend while trying to look innocent of anything smacking of blame, since he had never done anything about the kunoichi's _odd_ sense of humor either. For some reason she was perfectly well mannered near his wife and son, just not anywhere else.

"I see why you do it, _that's_ funny." Shikaku quietly laughed into her ear, gently tugging her away from the mostly clear training field and to where the worn forest path lay. "Not so much when you're the target."

There were not many of those forest paths in Konoha's outer reaches, since the farther training fields were intended for chuunin or high level ninja for training exercise that might last days and they rarely needed a path to find them or get out. But the few there were twisted around the more commonly used training fields to help guide exhausted young shinobi back to the main parts of the village without risking the embarrassing event of walking straight into an ongoing training exercise.

"Alas, you've caught onto my terrible, horrible secret." Snarked Natsumi as she tried to concentrate on putting one foot before the other. "Now I have to either kill you or turn you to the dark side. Chose, Shikaku. Your life may depend on it."

The teenage shadow user laughed at his fiancée, sweeping the assassin up in a bridal hold when she tripped over her feet again. "Dark side it is. Hold on, Natsumi."

"I can _walk_, damn it! Put me _down!_"

"You'll take _forever_ like this. I want that nap."

(ooo000ooo)

"So you're thinking just reflexes once he fixes the seal?"

"It has to be." Natsumi told the white haired sannin and her blond fellow chuunin the next day. "I could keep up with _where_ I was just fine when the movement stopped. The force behind the space-time compression between the kunai and my original starting position was snapping my head around, causing an effect like whiplash, and was probably why Minato-kun couldn't orientate himself without my comprehension behind him. Kami-sama knows the gaki's smarter than me, so it really is looking like something that he can change in the seal to solve the worst of. Without a forceful arrival, he should be able to adapt to the new position almost or just as fast as I can."

Besides, Minato had been the one to do this by himself in a story she once read. It had to be something the blond could either fix or improve himself.

"So reduce the power going to the seal, or limit the draw." Said blond now mused aloud, looking over the full hiraishin seal he had made spread out between the three of them.

Natsumi thought sealing was like a pictographic computer language, honestly. You had some words that made no grammatical sense in a sequence, but cause the major process of the program to be completed as needed and trying a better or more descriptive word would just screw everything up… and there wasn't a screen to show you that you fucked up, seals just tended to explode if done wrong. Minato had more than a few sequences in his seal she couldn't understand, so she wouldn't be making actual suggestions on how he could fix it all. She had not been a programmer in her last life, she had only known enough to tell if her computer needed professional help on occasion. Fuuinjutsu was beautiful to look at, the drawn seals that could blow up in your face or suck something placed on it into nothing for storage were almost works of art to the ninja world, but it was harder to do than the stark looking programming she could only blearily recall learning in her first childhood.

"You could also try improving your reflex speed now." The assassin offered, slightly upset at herself for not knowing enough to help her kouhai puzzle out the problem. She had done most of her study into fuuinjutsu on her own, not really wanting to be known to have sealing skills and having no intent on infringing on Kushina's and Minato's area of expertise. "And comprehension can be trained too. One's dodge training and the other is recall, but I can help you out with both."

"Stop it, sempai." Her stupid, and apparently empathetic, blond kouhai had picked up on her frustration at herself, pinning her still from across his table with a level stare. "You hadn't been all that thrilled when you started learning fuuinjutsu, you only did it to help me learn it at first. I'm not expecting you to help me solve every little problem I won't go to Kushina-chan for. I should be thanking you for experiencing whiplash for me."

Natsumi really didn't have much to say to that other than _damn blonds_. "You're welcome… I think."

\V/

Jiraiya left the village the day after he had tested out his fuuinjutsu student's seal on an old genin student, once Tsunade cleared both of them on the medical side.

The heavy hands that landed on their heads were expected, the chunk of advice was the surprising part. "If either of you really want a Summons Contract in the near future, build up your chakra stores as much as you can. At the moment, neither of you would be able to summon anything bigger than your fist."

Natsumi and Minato blinked at each other in the clinic room the Slug Princess had checked them out in before looking back to the white haired sannin.

The assassin knew she had rather large stores of chakra for an average kunoichi, but not near enough to match the male ninjas of her years. She _had_ thought her kouhai was already good enough to try learning to summon something, though. "How do you do that, sensei? I though the amount you could use only increased with age."

Jiraiya sank to his heels, bringing himself eye level with both of his teenage students. Even if the male fourteen year old one was starting to grow taller than his female fifteen year old one. "True, but that's mostly a result from using your chakra a little every day even when not on mission or working on a jutsu, and only partially a result of your growing stretching the chakra system out. Your stores do expand with growth, but not anywhere near as fast as it can if you work on it. You can accelerate the process by emptying your stores every night before you go to sleep, your body will then finish refilling those stores around noon the next day and then you'll use them up again that night, stretching them out bit by bit. It's what the Hyuuga and Uchiha clans do for their gakis before sending them to the academy, and why they seem so damn perfect there. There is a cap, you can only go so far before you threaten to collapse your systems from the stress. You can also only do this before you hit your full adult size, because your chakra systems are still flexible enough for it without retaining any damage from the attempt. If you keep getting checked out by Tsunade-hime while you do it you both will be fine in the long run, and by the time I come back next year you should be almost ready to sign on a contract even if you don't end up having the reserves to summon in battle."

The theory was similar to the idea Natsumi had behind Minato's Dead Reaper Seal that contained the nine-tails in his son. If exposed to more and more chakra leaking into his system from the conversion seal, Naruto would be able to use more and more of it at one time since his Uzumaki vitality boosted by Kurama would probably stretch to cover that kind of damage. Kami-sama knows she had no idea how else the blond brat could had survived a lot of his injuries even with Uzumaki healing keeping him from instantly dying from bleeding out. It was also the only possibility on _how_ the gaki could use a chakra intensive kinjutsu like Shadow Clones at genin, having that done every day since just after birth through his entire life, even she couldn't do hers more than five or so times a day before feeling the drain of chakra exhaustion nag at her.

And _wow_ was that a nasty feeling.

But also _wow_ were shinobi clans _assholes_ for that, because most clan kids were held up as shining examples in the academy that the civilian born ninjas in training and orphaned would be shinobi were expected to follow. That was probably also why Chouza and Inoichi had looked so surprised the first time she had beaten them on the taijutsu practice field back when they had all been between eight and nine. Those without clan backings were working on one heavy handicap going to the academy cold, not knowing how to fight effectively or use their chakra. That could account for a lot of the disdain between clan children and the rest of the academy students because _of course_ the clan raised students would be better, they had the help their whole lives that the civilian kids were only just then getting.

Natsumi hadn't noticed anything more than the general feelings to the kids she had started hanging out with because… well, she didn't _care_ what the other kunoichi had thought. The clan brats had been the only ones really trying to prepare themselves for the shinobi life, so that's where she went when Minato pulled her out of her head.

The obvious problem of doing it now was where the assassin's mind went after thinking about how most clans in Konoha were dicks. "Missions will be harder if we do that."

"I'll put a note in your files that you're doing this, and for the time being you'll be inactive on the mission rosters every other month. It's not really done often, but it's not looked down on either as long as the village can miss you for a while and not scramble to cover your field of expertise. You're excused from missions when your sensei or master lets you attempt this exercise for however long, and since assassins or fuuinjutsu users are not that high in demand at the moment I don't see anyone complaining about reducing the number of specialist available on opposing months."

"True, I haven't seen any AnBu work since that string of low ranked targets a couple of months ago." Natsumi frowned, thinking back to the last time she had worn her armor and wondering if she needed it resized again. Damn her growing limbs and dimensions… on second thought, she just wanted to finish growing already. She was tired of being short. "Will taicho mind?"

The Toad Sage suddenly coughed, snickering a bit once he got control of his breathing. "Sakumo won't mind. You'll have to stick with him until you're done, but you both will have more chakra to throw around in the middle of a fight later on."

"Did you do this, sensei?" Minato asked before his sempai could ask why the man was laughing. Sometimes it was better _not_ to know with the two of them.

"On and off every other couple months for a few years after we were given to Hiruzen-sensei to teach. He couldn't let us do it all at the same time or for very long, but it is part of the reason me and the rest of my team have so much to work with." The man straightened up, patting both on the head again. "I'll test you both out to see how you're doing on it when I come back, but for now I'm going to check in with Inoichi-kun again before I leave."

The blond watched their genin sensei walk out the door with a backwards wave before turning to the dark haired teen sitting on the medical cot opposite of his. "Do you want to try, sempai?"

Natsumi hummed to herself, thinking through all the pros and cons and frowning only briefly when her own voice cracked on her. She turned to face Minato after clearing her throat. "More chakra does seem like a good thing for later on, but have you ever experienced chakra exhaustion, kouhai? I have, and that's kind of like suddenly getting the flu and starving at the same time. This is sounding like we're going to be hitting that feeling before calling it a day for a whole _year_. You're going to need someone to watch you the first few weeks if you attempt this."

She theorized chakra exhaustion felt like the flu because you lost that much spiritual energy and the starvation feeling was the lack of physical energy. It was still nasty to go through, and she had hit that limit more than a few times learning and relearning how to keep a hold of her chakra control and contain the extra Yin energy at the same time. She never had to feel what depletion was like, neither Jiraiya nor Sakumo would've ever let a student or subordinate go through that risk since you could die of depletion if you weren't insanely careful about how far you went. It was a cause of death in ninja because once you were completely out of chakra, you were also out of what kept you _alive_ here.

"Why are we not finding a watcher for you?"

"_I've_ got Shikaku, and I don't think you want to listen to that."

Minato blanched, hurriedly waving his hands in dismissal of that idea. "That's okay. I'll ask Inoichi-kun."

Natsumi snickered at his pale expression. "We should also keep up with sparring with the others, seeing as this is going to wipe us out of the active mission roster for long stretches at a time. I'd hate to go back to active duty and find out what I did wasn't enough to make at least tokubetsu jounin."

\V/

Despite what any of the others thought they might get up to, she and Shikaku really only played tactical games or read scrolls when left alone for any decent amount of time. Though Natsumi thought that the fact the Nara was now playing along with her jokes was another level of awesome altogether.

"Check."

"Damn."

Although she was really starting to regret teaching her intended husband how to play chess now. "I give. There's nothing I can do with three pawns and a king."

"I only have my bishops and another knight to up your collection."

"Yeah… _twice_ the number of pieces I've got left, Shikaku. _And_ I'm getting boxed in. I call your checkmate in five moves." Natsumi tipped her king over, shrugging back into the blanket she snagged off her bed and wrapped around herself to stave off the shivers. "I don't know why I let my kouhai talk me into this crap, I already _knew_ it was going to massively _suck_." It wasn't quite late enough to go to sleep, but there was not nearly enough time left in the day to do anything else remotely interesting after making herself sick with chakra exhaustion.

Minato was out on a mission right now, and they would swap who was mission ready and who was attempting Jiraiya's chakra expanding exercise next month when he got back, but she wanted to bitch at him for the queasy feeling she was going through _now_, damn it.

"I thought you wanted a Summons Contract… and Jiraiya-sama did tell you to do it." The Nara deftly slotted the pieces still on the board between his fingers to clear up Natsumi's small dinner table. The assassin had carved the pieces from oak and ebony wood between missions in AnBu before the Second War had ended, and bought a plank of elm wood to make the board out of back when she had been first teaching him the game. It was still a little rough, some of the pieces needed to be finished and sealed with lacquer still, but Shikaku did want to ask her to make a shogi board and pieces when she was done with this set. Or maybe a Chinese checkers board, that one sounded interesting with up to six players able to play at the same time.

"Nothing said I couldn't get one later, like when I didn't have to go through this crud daily."

"They're still up there in chakra requirements, like kinjutsus."

"And I can do a kinjutsu." Shikaku gave her a _look_, and Natsumi huffed. "Okay, not a chakra intensive one nor a good number of times in the same day, but _still_."

Snorting a laugh, the Nara changed the subject knowing she was really only complaining to complain. "Where did you learn to carve?"

"My tou-san in my last life. He taught me that and a few other pieces of woodcraft before he passed away when I reached sixteen." Natsumi shut her light green eye, inspecting the pieces in her intended's calloused hands. "He wouldn't have been very happy with those, mostly because I haven't _finished_ them yet. Another thing I've been meaning to get to."

"And you kept up with it your whole life?"

"You think the amount of down time we have now between missions is unreal? You should've seen the time we wasted back then between one objective and another." Slouching to stretch out her legs, the assassin finally admitted defeat to herself and got up to retreat to her couch to lay down and either try to wait out her headache or fall asleep. "We had a saying about day to day life when deployed or in the barracks at home. Hurry up and _wait_. I just… carved between waiting and working if I had nothing else to do with any of the others."

Since there wasn't any conflict going on that needed an active shinobi army the size of Konohagakure's wartime available manpower, there was a lot of ninjas at loose ends with nothing really going on that needed their attention in or outside the village. There had been a year of spying intensive missions and the like after the Second Great Shinobi War ended and most were paranoid that some village or another wouldn't keep to the non-aggression treaties, but even that tricked down until a shinobi between A to C-rank were averaging _maybe_ a week long mission every two months and a lot of still paying but basically busywork missions between that. There was still the normal amount of contracts Konoha had to deal with, the high paying assassinations and infiltrations down to caravan guarding and escort services for wealthy travelers, but those were not nearly enough to occupy the time of several ninjas that specialized in the required fields or could substitute if needed.

So with a surplus of shinobi there were a lot of bored, not entirely right in the head, and obsessive ninjas inside the walls at any time. There were also a lot of training fields in use now, and some shinobi were even swapping teaching one another some skill to eat up time between missions. There was also a lot of the phrase 'get a hobby' going around the village, too.

Natsumi figured this was what it was going to be like after the Third Great War. There was supposed to be about a decade of it after before anything started happening from what she could think of, and she was already bored and trying to revive an old hobby of hers she had only dabbled with here between AnBu missions. Maybe she needed a new hobby?

The only good thing about surviving that if she did, and she was kinda hoping for that because her life was really interesting here, was going to be all the time she could use to mess with her friends.

Shikaku had an odd little smile on his face as he put the game board and pieces away in her already crammed bookcase. "I'll see you tomorrow, Natsumi."

"Night, Shikaku."

Now _why_ had he been smiling?

\V/

Hatake Eri was awesome. Natsumi knew that already, but the thought still needed reinforcing every now and again.

The wife of her taicho had no problems also maybe cooking for two nearly starving orphans and sometimes a red head jinchuuriki every day as well as herself, son, and even sometimes her husband, something that the assassin had dreaded doing herself simply because of the grocery bill now that she and Minato were living mostly on the small amount of mission pay they got every other month. Sakumo was high ranking enough to be still taking a good amount of missions even with the dip in available ones for the rest of the corps, and the man didn't care if she, the blond other orphan, or Kushina came by for lunch or dinner because that added another watcher or two to his home when he was out of the village handling whatever to support a wife and son.

Since there were not enough high paying missions coming in for the whole shinobi corps to survive just off the pay from them, Konoha started paying out a set amount per rank if you pulled less than a certain number of missions every month. It had been standard practice already and taken out of the village tax on all incoming missions contracted to them, as it was how the chuunins of the Chuunin Corps were normally paid as well as the D-ranked community service missions for genin teams, but this was the first time in Konoha's history that it needed to be stretched for some of the tokubetsu jounin and full jounin ranked ninjas. It had been used to cover training accidents, injuries that made you unable to run a mission for money, when for whatever reason you were pulled from active duty by a superior, and it really only covered basic living expenses and a minimum diet. That was now responsible for the upswing in lower ranked shinobi looking for part time work to make ends meet in the longer empty time between missions. That pay was now mostly taken out of the commissions normally given to the ninjas doing high risk or intensive work and subsidized by the fees levied on traveling civilian merchants in return for shinobi escorts to and from where they were going, but the village needed more than that to keep up with paying the shinobi who couldn't do missions simply because there were none available for them to take.

There were rumors that the Daimyo of Fire Country would need to be contacted to keep the shadow military power in his country working and alive, but the Hokage didn't want to do that.

The core of the soldier in her was amused over how much the paper pushers that gave the orders were running around like headless chickens. In reality, the pay situation wasn't as funny as Natsumi thought it was, but since this was the first time it looked like Konoha had some time to operate in peacetime the administrative core of the village were panicking over how to pay all the shadow warriors that looked to them for orders and guidance with the peacetime dip in high risk missions happening. She might know there would eventually be a working method hit upon, because the village had still been standing a war and ten years of peace later, but no one else did.

Really, the people tasked with figuring out how to support that much available manpower without the usual resources for it were worrying over very little, because you didn't raise and train soldiers to be as loyal as Konoha ninja were and then have them turn on you in a small amount of time for a problem you were already taking steps in trying to fix. It would take a few years of this before any shinobi would even start grumbling about how bad it was, and before that happened there would have to be several stupid mistakes made by the higher ups.

But the village was allowed to make these kinds of oversights in the running logistics of a military controlled village, they really hadn't had to deal with this kind of thing before. It wouldn't have flown in her last life because that had been an army established for longer than two hundred years already between peace and war, and they _should_ know how to deal with it.

Now if it happens again in the next seven years or whenever the Third War was supposed to end, Natsumi would be getting kind of pissed at them.

She was just thankful that the apartments she, Minato, and Kushina were living in were subsidized by Konoha for the use of lower ranked ninjas without family support and they weren't paying rent on them, because that would have been even worse than just waiting the administrative money themed panic out. And for the frugal way of living her last life had impressed on her, because she still had a large lump from AnBu pay in the few banks Konoha had.

She had the same problem in her last life. What the hell was she going to do with all that? Most of what she needed to live on was taken care of already, unlike a large chunk of the shinobi ranks who were trying to support families on their income, so she didn't really have use for it.

Natsumi _was_ chipping in some for the grocery bill Eri racked up cooking for them all, but that wasn't making much of a dent in what she had.

Both Minato and Kushina were a little annoyed with her, mostly because they still had to buy the instruments of fuuinjutsu users. Paper and ink did get expensive when you went through it as much as the two of them did.

That reminded her. Vellum. The thin leather produced from calf skin would be almost as hellishly expensive as Minato's usual monthly paper bill, but would make a better grip for the hiraishin kunai than chakra absorbing seal paper. And didn't the brat have another birthday coming up again? Fifteen? She was starting to feel old.

Natsumi blinked and looked over to the humming woman that married her old AnBu captain bouncing a silver haired almost toddler on her lap. "Eri-san? Are you going to need me for an hour or two? I've got an errand to run that I only just remembered."

"I think Kakashi-chan and I can get by for now, though I wish you will return before evening to do the security seals I still can't understand."

Hey! Eri was _learning_… she was getting good at this living with ninjas thing. "Kay. Minato-kun can help while I'm gone."

"Wait, I can what?"

The assassin almost tackled her bewildered kouhai off his chair with a brief hug before slapping the snickering Kushina on the back in farewell. "Can help. I'll be back eventually!"

(ooo000ooo)

"Can vellum be used for _what?_"

"Fuuinjutsu. Cause the paper I had in the little field test of my kouhai's was kind… eh, as a grip." Natsumi waggled a hand from side to side to show her intended husband how much she didn't like the seal paper Minato used to hold his seal onto the metal kunai. "And seriously, when it gets hit with rain, mud, and blood it's not going to be much of a grip but an inky mess. So I thought _leather grip_, because that's standard for kunai, and then _hey, leather you can write on_, and ended up wondering if vellum be used for fuuinjutsu since the whole chakra infused ink on something once living might conflict when used to anchor a in use seal."

Shikaku blinked at her a few times, trying to see if he could recall any conversation between the fuuinjutsu users about preferred surfaces. "I… don't know, actually."

The assassin pouted at him, not really surprised and expecting that kind of answer already. "Not much help, Shikaku. That's not how this is supposed to _work_, damn it. You're supposed to know everything."

The shadow master smirked, shaking his head at her. "You know just fine there are things I don't know. Genius I may be, but all-knowing? Nope, sorry."

Natsumi sighed, sinking into a seat next to the teen working on tactical plans for something or another. "So now I need to test that gift idea out. Well… okay."

"You'll need Kushina-chan's help, too."

"Nope. I know some fuuinjutsu. Mostly exploding and storage seals, but I know a few other things too."

"You do?" He sounded so surprised that the assassin had to laugh.

"Shikaku, I practically _live_ in Minato-kun's apartment when I've got nothing important or pressing to work on myself. Kami-_sama_, Inoichi-kun was getting fed up listening to the two of us exchange ideas when we were genin. Genius my ass." Natsumi poked him in the side, smirking herself when he twitched. "_Why_ haven't you heard that bit about your own fiancée yet?"

"I generally take a nap when he goes on about those days." The Nara admitted frankly, shrugging. "Most of what he starts in on is how much of a pervert Jiraiya-sama is and I fall asleep between the time you all wasted near a hot spring in or out of the village and how girly his giggles are."

"_Well_… he is, we did, and they are."

"And most of Konoha knows it already. They may not _expect_ the level of pervert the man is before meeting him, they'll be thinking one of the _sannin_ and get a white haired _letch_ instead, but it is generally well known if you need him to go to the woman's side of the onsen and listen for the girly giggling."

Snickering at her sensei's carefully crafted reputation getting that far, a cover for any spy was even better for them if it was actually based in common knowledge, the assassin picked herself up off the floor of the teen's bedroom. "Okay. I'll give you that. I'm off to the… mmm, Akimichi run leatherworkers to pick some vellum up. More than I had planned on, but still. I am expecting you tonight, right?"

The tactical genius hummed his confirmation, eyes and attention already straying back to his work in front of him.

_Males_. First Minato and his hiraishin and now Shikaku and the tactics for the Shika-Ino-Cho team formation. Yet again, _hello history_.

\V/

"_Damn_ did I miss _this_."

"Not our fault you actually got a mission out of the village, Mitoko-chan."

The Uchiha genjutsu specialist flapped a hand at her best kunoichi friend. "Shush, you. I'm _basking_."

Natsumi laughed, flicking some water on the other two. "Suna really doesn't see the appeal of onsens, Kushina-hime. Might have something to do with the usual range of _hot_ and _hotter_ they have over there. And I'm not talking about their shinobi, cause you don't get to see much of that under their usual coverings unless you're _really_ unlucky."

The red head pouted, flicking water back to the assassin. "You know what, hush you. I'm starting to feel jealous of the two of you."

"For _what_?" Mikoto asked archly, looking back at the jinchuuriki. "The mission? There are not a lot of chuunins getting many these days, Kushina-chan."

"No, for being _engaged_." Kushina pouted even harder, something hard to take serious when you knew the fourteen year old kunoichi was a natural trickster. "I'm feeling lonely, especially when Natsumi-chan starts cracking the jokes she learned from Jiraiya-sama."

The assassin didn't manage to contain her snort in time, and the red head pounced on it.

"I knew it! This is all _you_, isn't it?" Kushina tried grabbing the AnBu, but Natsumi swiftly placed the Uchiha teen between her and the jinchuuriki. "You're doing it just to see us all twitch!"

"Damn, I must be getting rusty." The duel eyed misplaced solider commented almost to herself. "First my fiancée and now you? Same terms, hime, come over to the dark side or _die_."

It was difficult for the other two kunoichi to take her seriously, because Natsumi couldn't do anything about the wicked smirk inching across her face.

Mikoto's own lips twitched. "The _dark_ side? Do we even want to know?" She answered her own rhetorical question a moment later, still eyeing the assassin's smirk. "On second thought, I don't want to know."

"Never! I shall oppose you and your dark side, Natsumi-chan." The widely grinning red head faced off with the duel eyed teen-woman. "Prepare to fail."

Natsumi's eyebrow rose, incredulous. "I've got Shikaku."

The jinchuuriki swore, crossing her arms under her chest. "Damn it. Well… I've got Mikoto-chan."

"Oh no you don't. I don't want to be a part of this… whatever it is."

Kushina pouted at her best friend. "Really? You're going to leave me to fight off Natsumi-chan's perverted jokes all on my lonesome? You're a mean friend, Mikoto-chan."

"Oh… is that what we're doing?"

"A little slow on the uptake today, aren't we?"

"Shut it, Natsumi-chan."

"You know, a lot of people have been telling me to shut up lately. I think I'm not going to just on principle."

"Okay," Kushina interjected and held up one hand, "back to the subject, ladies."

Natsumi blinked at her. "What, Suna? Well… Suna shinobi, I think."

"No, we were on hot springs." Mikoto amended, frowning. "Erm, no… missions, maybe?"

"Oh kami-sama. Why do I hang out with the two of you?" The red head groaned dramatically, covering her face with her hands to hide the smirk. "_No._ Engagements."

"Aww, hime. Are you feeling _lonely?_" The assassin drew the jinchuuriki into a hug, patting her on the back with a smirk. "Don't worry, there's always room for you in my bed."

Kushina easily pushed the teen-woman off her and into the water, mock scowling at the hazy figure in the pool. "I asked for that, didn't I?"

"Yes, yes you did." Mikoto helped the assassin up out of the water, shaking her head at the red head. "Why do you encourage her?"

"Did you _see_ how far Hiashi-san spat out his milk last year? That _was_ funny."

Natsumi snorted out the water in her nose, snickering the whole time. "Yeah, I almost got Shibi-san to do the same a few months after that. But he only shuddered a bit and turned green in the end, though on the other hand Tsume got her tea all over Kuromaru at the same time he was twitching."

The nearly sixteen year old genjutsu specialist blinked at the two of them. "Oh. _Oh_, I get it. But… _really_ Natsumi-chan? You were like _twelve _or so when you started."

"And I was just assigned to Jiraiya-sensei. I had been perfectly well-behaved up… oh shut up, hime, my jokes were _not_ that bad in the academy." Natsumi took a moment to mock glare disdainfully at the fake gagging the jinchuuriki was doing. "Okay, I'll maybe admit one or two were horrible but _anyways_, I had been appropriate the whole time I was supposedly too young. Then I got my pervert of a sensei and went _Hey, ready-made excuse_."

Mikoto frowned, thinking back to those years and trying to place the misplaced soldier's mentality in her misleading physical age. "Why to us, though? We weren't old enough to realize they were jokes and not completely serious for at least another year, and then I just figured you liked seeing us react to that kind of thing."

"You're partially right. I will fully admit I am a sadistic individual and I thought it was hilarious to see you all choke on air when you realized what I said." The assassin shrugged, leaning against the side of the hot spring. "And at first it was a lot more funny to see Tsunade-sama punch sensei through a wall or two, then it became something you all reacted to in the end. I mostly used it as a judge to how much I could do to others that didn't know me before hitting the inappropriate mark, but then I eventually realized even that was okay because everyone would just blame Jiraiya-sensei and not get irritated at me."

"You _bitch_." Kushina breathed out, an unholy glee lighting up her face. "You've been pranking the whole village!"

Natsumi waggled a finger just under the red head's nose. "You don't have the excuse of being the Toad Sage's student, hime, so don't even think about it."

Mikoto buried her face in her hands. "Back to topic, please. Before my head explodes trying to understand our resident fruitcake's motives and why exactly you want to copy it, Kushina-chan."

"Which topic? My perverted flavored sadism or Suna's ugly mugged ninjas?"

The Uchiha groaned herself, trying to hide her laughter. "Really, Natsumi-chan?" The physically older teen peered at the two of them from between her fingers. "_Kushina-chan's_ topic."

"Oh right, the one I was pushed into the water for." The woman in a teenager's body turned to the suddenly sheepish red head. "Do you _want_ an arranged marriage? I mean, you have an opportunity not to deal with clans and clan elders, but we'll sell you like a two ryou whore if that's what you want."

The jinchuuriki's mouth dropped open. The Uchiha teen stared. Natsumi started snickering.

"What? I never said I'd _stop_."

Kushina blinked a few times, trying to get over the fact the assassin had indirectly called her a whore, then grabbed her best friend's arm and led them both out of the water. "I think this calls for a tactical retreat, Mikoto-chan."

"Natsumi-chan's place?"

"Yep."

"Hey, why my place?"

"You can afford better tea than I can and _that_ was _awful_."

(ooo000ooo)

Mikoto eyed the assassin. "Why on the ceiling? And for that matter, _how_ is it your tea isn't spilling out when the teacup's upside down?"

"I'm exhausting my chakra supply every night this month. And chakra control is the answer for everything, apparently. Mine just loves water, which is why I'm also learning some suiton jutsus at the moment with my downtime." Natsumi took a sip of her hot tea, smirking down at the two below her. "Normally I have Shikaku watch me to make sure I don't go too far, but you two will do since he's not here yet."

"So glad we can help, Natsumi-chan." Kushina interjected wryly. "Now back to my problem?"

"The one where you want to get a hubby too and pop out some kids in the near future?" Suppressing the desire to laugh, although the jinchuuriki's expression was funny the misplaced soldier didn't think she would take well to that with the subject matter, Natsumi readjusted her folded legs into a more comfortable position and continued once she had control of herself. "There really are a few options open to you, hime, but for that small problem you seem to have that we've already talked about."

The Uchiha looked between the tea sipping assassin on the ceiling and the pale red head next to her. "I thought we were already talking about _a_ problem, what other small problem is there?"

Natsumi shook her head at the pleading expression on Kushina's face. "I _can't_, hime. The ways the laws are written, only you can."

All the kages that Konoha had so far had _known_ that the secret of who was the container for the Kyuubi would get out one way or another. Partly from human nature and partly from shinobi curiosity, the next jinchuuriki might want to tell someone close to them and you don't dangle a secret under a ninja's nose and expect them to leave it alone. Since honorable Hashirama-sama had actually been married to one, the first jinchuuriki for Kurama the honorable Uzumaki Mito-sama, his brother had specifically written the laws after the First's death so that _only the current jinchuuriki could tell others about demon containers_ without violating the security laws set around the secret unless you were being informed for state reasons, like telling the heirs of the clans, who it was. It wasn't punishable by death to know _without_ being told, just so long as you kept it to yourself. Telling someone who didn't know when you were not the jinchuuriki or a clan head talking to the heir was an offense that would end in your public execution for being a spy, even if you were an upstanding member of the shinobi corps or a respected civilian member of the village.

That law was the saving grace of Naruto's childhood when the Sandaime had been forced to admit the previous jinchuuriki was deceased and the Yondaime had died resealing the demon into a baby to the village, because it had _already_ been illegal to tell any of the generation growing up with him _what_ he was. Sarutobi Hiruzen didn't have to face an uphill battle to put that law in place when he resumed office, he just had to deal with the headache when it was broken the first few times by the grieving villagers. That didn't mean the disaffected civilians and lower ranking ninjas couldn't hint and nudge their kids into shunning the poor brat for indirectly killing their Fourth Hokage and holding back a demon that did smash through a large bit of Konoha and killed a number of others, but none of them in his generation had put it all together until Naruto had been on his way to being a great shinobi and they already knew him as that blond goofball but honestly nice guy off-duty.

For that reason alone, even though sparing the red head the anxiety of telling her best friend was an attractive thought, Natsumi wouldn't _ever_ break that law.

She wasn't much of a rule breaker to begin with, but there were a few she didn't mind ignoring on technicalities for her friends.

The assassin sipped her tea, watching Mikoto's reactions during the conversation and making sure the red head wasn't worried for any real reason.

The Uchiha teen was shocked white for a few good moments, true, but she adjusted well.

Sort of.

"And here I thought Natsumi-chan was the only _unique_ one."

The named fifteen year old kunoichi; who had once been a twenty-seven year old soldier of another world and life entirely, had elected to become an assassin at age eleven here, and was currently drinking tea while sitting cross-legged on the ceiling to reach a drained feeling that no ninja ever liked experiencing; blinked a few times. "What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

Mikoto wrinkled her nose up at the misplaced soldier, regaining her mental balance even as she drew the jinchuuriki into a hug to show she didn't care about the contained demon problem. "Am I the only normal kunoichi in the room? Yes? I get to call you weird."

_You're going to have two sons, one of whom will wipe out your whole clan except for his little brother to keep a coup from happening by your clan and destroying Konoha from the inside. I think that qualifies for unique_.

Kushina laughed weakly. "You don't care about me? Why am I not weird?"

It was painfully pathetic, her attempt to joke at her own expense.

"Because you don't crack horrible, perverted jokes." The genjutsu specialist declared firmly, squeezing the younger kunoichi. "_You_ are funny when pranking, _she's_ just a pervert in a teenager's body."

"Oi!"

Natsumi might have protested the good humored slight, but the jinchuuriki finally started laughing. Tinged with hysteria, maybe, but it was the relieved sort of giggling that followed the realization that an issue turned insurmountable problem in their head hadn't been as bad as they thought in reality.

"I suppose that explains why you feel weird to my chakra senses." Mikoto mused out loud later, when Kushina could regain control of herself. "I always thought it was because of that clan vitality Natsumi-chan told me about."

"Oh, so now I'm weird?" The jinchuuriki asked, sniffing slightly not from hurt feelings but from relief. "I see how much you love me, Mikoto-chan… but weird how?"

The Uchiha kunoichi hummed, trying to place a feeling that had no description into something she could convey to the other two. "Like… like the heat off a banked fire pit. You can see some embers contained inside, you can feel the warmth pouring out already, and you know there can be more depending on what happens, but until you finally poke it up you don't know how big the fire can really get."

Natsumi's eyebrow rose up, or rather down, impressed. As a kunoichi specializing illusion based genjutsus, Mikoto really did have a way with words when she wanted to.

The knock on her door cut off any more conversation, and the Uchiha teen answered it for the assassin still sitting on the ceiling. It really was a good thing the misplaced soldier had written her own privacy seals into her walls, or she would be getting paranoid about eavesdroppers around now.

Shikaku looked around at the company his fiancée was keeping, trying really hard not to let the smirk show on his face. "Hen's night in?"

"If that were so, why are you here? I'm _mostly_ sure you're supposed to be my husband in a year or so, not my wife."

Mikoto inhaled wrong when draining her teacup and bent over, coughing.

The Nara finally smirked and Kushina screeched with laughter, pointing at him in mock accusation. "Oh kami-sama, he _is_ in on _it!_"

"Finally caught on, I see." Shikaku drawled out lazily. "Still beat you a fair few months."

Natsumi hummed her agreement, watching the Uchiha splutter below her. "So true."

Mikoto firmly placed her teacup down, trying hard not to let herself hack out a few more coughs. "We… should go. Thank you for the tea." Trying vainly to maintain her dignity, the future Matron of the Uchiha clan stiffly grabbed the giggling mess Kushina was and dragged her out of the apartment.

Her fiancée eyed her position as the two of them let themselves out and shut the door behind them. "Interesting."

"Hey. What works, works." Natsumi tossed him her empty cup and got around to getting down.

\V/

Minato took the roll of vellum from his sempai, eyeing the thin leather curiously. "What's this?"

They were all in the Senju's compound, the blond fuuinjutsu user's fifteenth birthday having come up on the same day most of them had free and used to meet up now since he flat out refused to have a party for it. The only ones missing were the future Shika-Ino-Cho team, since Konoha had finally figured out how to direct all that directionless manpower in the village into something useful.

C-ranked border patrols. Sarutobi Hiruzen had sold the idea of commissioning five teams of C to B ranked shinobi on a semi-permanent basis to guard Fire Country's border with the samurai already stationed there to their Daimyo, who had jumped on the idea and actually commissioned seven teams on month long rotating basis in the outposts and a few more for actual patrols between them. It took a chunk of the then unused chuunins and tokubetsu jounins out of the village, let up the pressure on the mission office ninjas to find the shinobi now tasked something to do something to actually do, and was bringing in a new source of revenue for the village and shinobi alike.

Natsumi figured they would be seeing a lot of those outposts in the near future, so it was a good thing the shinobi ranks were getting used to them now.

"This is vellum, a kind of leather you can ink a seal on and wrap around the kunai you're playing around with. This won't turn into an inky mess when you stab somebody, as well."

The blond's eyebrows shot up. "Damn, hadn't even thought of that. Thanks, sempai."

The assassin smiled at him, trying not to feel like she was sending her kouhai down a rocky path known for rockslides without a map. Even if that was just what she had done in giving him the vellum.

Leather couldn't be used as is in fuuinjutsu without a lot of prep work. Since it was a part of a living animal taken whole, it had fragments of the living energy remaining in it that all creatures had here. Vellum was just very thin leather taken from the skin of young animals, treated and stretched until it really was just like a kind of heavy paper. Actual paper didn't have that problem, because it was shredded and turned into pulp before being bleached and pressed in screens to dry, destroying the faint traces of living energy it might have held before the tree was cut down. Stone and wood had minor versions of the same problem, it was more difficult to anchor a seal to wood than to stone because trees had more natural energy in it that rock did, but you could use both cold if needed with a margin of error. Same with nearly any other media used for fuuinjutsu, there was a slight margin that would interfere with the seal depending on the natural chakra in the surface used to anchor it.

Which was why using seals in battle were so difficult, you had to know just how much of your own chakra was needed to just barely overpower the natural energy in what you were sealing to do it on the fly like Jiraiya could without it failing to hold both the seal and your chakra and imploding.

Kushina couldn't do it, she had premade tags she used if she needed her fuuinjutsu skills on mission because she was more likely to force too much charka into a surface and cause it to explode on her.

_Minato_ could use ink solely as a weapon, as long as he had worked the natural energy of a surface out once himself. His excellent mind for facts and details let him recall everything he needed to know in an instant and compensate for actual seals to be used, not just explosions.

There was a way to make _paper_ immune to _water_, but the seal for it was way too large and complicated for something her kouhai was adding another seal or three to and wrapping around the hilt of what was for all intents and purposes a throwing dagger the size of a trench knife. But vellum was already waterproofed and there was a way to waterproof the side you wrote on, meaning rain and blood wouldn't turn it into an inky mess of pulp unless soaked in some kind of water for at least a few minutes to loosen the ink seeped into the treated animal skin, unlike the paper Minato was using currently.

There was a way around to using leather instead of paper sealed from water if you had a size issue. It was the same way that jinchuuriki seals to contain a demon were anchored to a human's chakra network and skin.

It was very likely that this was how Minato found out about Kushina and Kurama, and how he knew the process of making a jinchuuriki like what he turned his son into and how to apply his hiraishin seal to other people. When looking for a permanent solution to the paper problems with his current version of the hiraishin, her kouhai must have jumped to leather, because that was standard in any kunai grip due to durability and was waterproofed already to keep the kunai from slipping out of your hand in inclement weather. Leather that you could write on was vellum. Then tripping into this problem, Minato would have done two things. Try to solve it himself and ask Jiraiya when the sannin returned and Kushina if he wasn't in the village at the time.

There was not very much in Konoha about the process of making a living demon container. It was widely known that the Uzumaki clan were the best to use for the creation of a jinchuuriki. The Uzumaki clan was also renowned for their fuuinjutsu mastery. Her blond kouhai probably had asked his crush about it if the Toad Sage hadn't been in the village at the time, since he did take any issues he struggled with to her already just for the excuse to talk to her. Natsumi could already see a lot of hurt feelings on her red headed friend's end when her blond gaki asked the current jinchuuriki about demon container seals.

Sometimes she forgot they were not as old as she was, and _were_ a bunch of teenagers even if this society held them as adults in their own rights.

It was a very big risk to give Minato the vellum now, even if Natsumi half expected her blond kouhai to finish developing the seal before attempting to use the expensive leather in his work. He was young and sometimes thoughtless like most males were prone to when around a female they liked, but… the blond was also one of the few people the misplaced soldier had met in either life who she would march into hell for if just asked to. Minato was genuinely a kind of leader who would chop off his hand before purposely getting someone killed for a reason he saw as petty, to ensure that his little minions were safe and sound before getting some rest himself even if he was running on a week without sleep, one of those stupidly self-sacrificing idiots heroic ballads were written about. Natsumi had seen that in him when he arranged more work for him and Inoichi without comment during the second test of the chuunin exams just to help her out of a frustrated rut with the desert.

Minato was one of those leaders that died early and young because they were _that_ kind of hero.

He was all that, and the gaki had beaten her ass in a public spar in Suna and had been getting to the point of always wining the informal spars they could fit in with the odd schedule they now held.

Natsumi had faith in him as her Hokage ever since Suna, especially seeing as she had been trying to _win_ that spar. She couldn't lead him around the problem and not let him learn what he needed to become the Fourth, it wouldn't be fair to either him or Kushina in the long run.

So the assassin would watch and wait, and if the blond future Yondaime looked like he would get himself killed for violating the jinchuuriki law she would step in, but there would be a time she would be operating blind like the rest of the village would, and having some kind of trust in her future leader's morals and strength of character sounded like a good idea.

So damn the butterflies in her guts about tossing her poor kouhai headfirst into this mess, she would just have to be diligent in keeping watch for him before he did something stupid.

"Hey sempai, I fixed that whiplash malfunction in my seal. Want to test it for me again?"

Now _that_ she could do. "Sure. Hey, Hiashi-sama! Go fetch Tsunade-sama!"

\V/

At nearly a year and three months, Kakashi was one curious toddler. He also was smart enough to figure out how certain series of events got him the things he wanted and took advantage of that fact often. A very smart toddler with absolutely devastating puppy dog eyes.

He could crawl around under his own power now, walk only if he had support for it, was learning to read even if he didn't like to speak often because it didn't sound like the others yet, and had more than a few interesting adventures at his knee height view of the world. Natsumi was currently watching him investigate Kuromaru, who was very well behaved around the young human child despite Eri's initial worries of the trained ninja dog being around her son.

Sometimes the dogs of the Inuzuka clan were better behaved than their human counterparts, something Natsumi found humorous in a backwards kind of way. She told the young woman lounging next to her that.

"You know, _I_ think it's hilarious that you babysit."

"Well, what else would I do with my time? I'm off active duty for the moment, because of this chakra developing task sensei gave me and Minato-kun to do, and there isn't much kenjutsu I can learn with taicho out of the village." The assassin told Tsume dryly, smirking a little as the silver haired toddler patted the nin-kin's fur before progressing to tugging shaggy hanks. "Did you think everyone like me just lurked in shadows and sharpened pointy things when not stalking innocent people and gossiping about village secrets?" She had done more of both the stalking and the gossiping as a kunoichi rather than as AnBu, thank you very much.

The Inuzuka gave a fanged grin to her fellow kunoichi. "I thought we stopped having to deal with the baby crap when we were promoted to chuunin. And… maybe."

Natsumi snorted at her, unimpressed with the view of AnBu held by most even _in_ the hidden village. "I thought I'd see the last of you when I made you choke on tea. Turns out both of us were wrong, huh?"

"I still can't believe you said that to Shibi's face."

"Did you see how green he turned? High point of my day, right there."

Tsume barked out her laughter, causing Kakashi to look over curiously at the sudden doggy noise. "This is why I keep coming back, Natsumi. You're _interesting_."

"And you can pretend you're knocking around with a kunoichi that likes pointy things, not getting advice from an amateur psychologist."

"That too."

Natsumi rolled her eyes at the future alpha of the Inuzuka clan. "Kashi-chan, no tugging doggy tails and ears. It's rude."

The fluffy, silver haired toddler pouted at the teenaged kunoichi that watched him nearly on a daily basis now, letting go of Kuromaru's tail to return to petting nicely. He knew that Natsumi knew he understood her just fine, and wouldn't let him continue playing with the dog if he ignored her.

It was kinda unreal to deal with child prodigies, they were… unnerving in that miniature adult way. Knowing the cause and effect of several things around them without even having to know what or how it worked, being uninterested in their safety and health because they didn't know about it yet but that was more interesting to their limited attention span than behaving like the other children messing around with things they already knew about. The assassin could now appreciate how the caretakers in the orphanage she grew up in felt about her, even if the situation hadn't been the same on her end.

But Natsumi could now see just how badly Kakashi had been unknowingly set up to fail as anything but a terrific ninja.

Without Eri to watch him and guide him around like a normal child was, just trained genin shinobi hired when Sakumo had to leave the village to support them, Kakashi would become immune to the usual child's view of those ninjas they set on pedestals for their almost fantastically unreal skills, thinking that what they could do was normal for everyone because everyone he saw could do it and giving him the impression that the genin or almost chuunin level skills he saw were basic starting points. Sakumo, seeing his son's development in the shinobi arts between missions, would naturally train him to do them correctly when he had the time with the intent in keeping his son from harming himself accidently. Kakashi would grow up thinking everyone did the same as he did, because the idea that his childhood was a bit abnormal wouldn't occur to him for a long time.

Hitting the academy like an explosive tag as soon as Sakumo could arrange it to give him something to do other than wait on him to return between missions, the silver haired prodigy would speed through the curriculum designed to get the civilian raised kids up to speed with their ninja raised counterparts and slowly ease into the shinobi mindset he was raised in. With the prior knowledge of both shinobi arts and his brilliant mind, Kakashi would have skipped through the latter two years just as fast as the first. He wouldn't make friends because they all would have avoided the child, either annoyed or uneasy about a four or five year old out doing them in subjects they had been learning for years. He wouldn't learn what the academy went through for shinobi trainees because he didn't do it, just tested out of it. Sakumo's suicide probably didn't help anything besides keeping the rest of the village from focusing their hate of the Third War starting on Kakashi's silver head.

Even being given to Minato wouldn't have helped him much after that, Kakashi would have been used to being the only one taught by his teacher or being alone to develop his skills and he had been obsessing over following the ninja rule book, because that was really what killed his father. Obito and Rin, arriving when Minato figured he would need teammates for higher risked missions, would have been like two other children encroaching on his view of how the world normally worked. Not having dealt with very many others, Kakashi wouldn't know how to get the idea he was getting frustrated with the shifting priorities across to either his teacher or his teammates. The shinobi mindset of keeping quiet until you fully knew the situation would hamper him as well, causing more than just a little friction between them all until something major happened to let the others in on how the prodigy thought.

Then after finally getting _a_ facet of the communication problem solved in one way, first Obito and then Rin, by his own hand no less, died, and the teen lost his sensei soon after that. Probably making the silver haired teen blame himself for the problems he didn't quite fully know and wasn't responsible for. Kakashi was never given the opportunity to develop the social skills he should have had by his teen years, and AnBu wouldn't have helped the matter in the very least because of how it operated even if it gave the teen space to deal with the losses he went through.

Sandaime-sama taking him out of AnBu to teach his insanely talented sensei's scorned son would have been like grinding salt on the old, reopened wounds. Kakashi wouldn't know _how_ to teach three students at the same time, never having the need to be taught in a social setting or go through the academy to know where his students were starting from, and even trying his very best the ex-AnBu Inu would have lost his students to better teachers, even if one teacher in particular wasn't a very moral person in the first place.

Uzumaki-Namikaze Naruto might have had the drive and the physical prospects, but he didn't have the knowledge or skills needed for shinobi life that Jiraiya equipped him with. Haruno Sakura might have had the theoretical knowledge, but she didn't have the physical skills, mindset, or drive of a kunoichi that Tsunade inspired to turn her into a stellar medic. Uchiha Sasuke had the most skills, the mindset, and the drive, but he was fucked over by ninja life before even Orochimaru bit him. Then the guilt of not doing right by his sensei's son and his genin team would have heaped over the guilt of somehow getting his own genin team all killed, and that didn't end well for anyone's mental wellbeing.

Being praised for his own brilliant mind through all of that would have given Kakashi the impression that there had been _something_ he could have done to save the people closest to him. His father, who had committed suicide to keep him from experiencing the blame of starting the Third War, his teammates, one who died _in his place_ and one that _killed herself on his hand_ to keep a threat sealed in her from reaching the village they served, his sensei and his wife, who died going up against a mad Uchiha and resealing the king of demons in their own newborn to save the village, all shouldn't have died because there was something he could have done to stop it. Handed three children he couldn't teach, that left him to be taught by the sannin, would have reinforced the idea he was doing something wrong because someone else turned them into exceptional shinobi in their own rights when he couldn't figure out how to do more than give them the bits of shinobi life he found out for himself.

So brilliant shinobi, yes. Brilliant as anything else, no. It was something you would only see from hindsight, and Kakashi probably did figure it out in the end. Not that it did give him any real help once he had both the knowledge and experience to understand what had gone wrong with him.

Still something Natsumi tended to cringed over when alone, at how badly that must have messed up the Kakashi she could recall from a hazy story of her other life.

"So… I may or may not have a problem."

"You don't say." The assassin deadpanned, still watching this Kakashi figure out there _were_ whiskers on the muzzle of a dog. "So what about this hypothetical problem of yours needs _my_ help? I don't shrink dog heads, Tsume."

"Ha!" The Inuzuka barked, grinning wickedly. "Dogs are sometimes better than us at sorting out what needs to be done about a problem, and I hope you meant shrink as mind games and not the literal shrink kind or I'd have to hurt you. Naw, mine's about the clan."

That got enough attention from Natsumi for the AnBu to turn and look at her fellow kunoichi. "Your clan is one of the most forthright ones in the village, what kind of _problem_ could you have with it?"

"You know how we select an alpha, right? That's my problem, I don't like the favored contender for it."

Ah. The misplaced soldier tugged the tail end of her growing hair, internally swearing at Shikaku for asking her to grow it out again. "You get to be alpha if you beat the shit out of any other contenders for the position, right? So beat the shit out of this idiot you don't like."

Tsume grinned wryly. "That's what I want to do, but the elders are barking that I'm female."

"So?"

"They don't like the idea of a female alpha."

"Beat the shit out of them too."

The Inuzuka tokubetsu jounin doubled over laughing, trying and failing to explain why that wasn't possible.

But Natsumi caught enough of it to huff exasperatedly at the young woman. "Look, it is simple. Unless the laws you have for leadership _expressly forbid_ a female from fighting for the clan, and I think we would've heard the howls from that being shoved through, as long as you can beat whoever tries to complain you're golden. Your dog packs have female alphas. Your human pack can have a female alpha. Just show them you have bigger balls than they do… just not _physically_."

Tsume eventually controlled her howl like laughter, around the time Kakashi started inspecting Kuromaru's paw and how it differed from his hand. "If I didn't think they'd try everything and anything to keep me from being alpha, I would _so_ try."

"So out think them." The assassin sighed, rubbing her head. Why did she always end up with a headache when the brash woman was nearby? "Alpha isn't just being stronger than the rest of the pack. It's also being smarter and thinking of the whole pack's health and safety, not just thinking for yourself. This is the reason you don't like the one being thought of as the next alpha right? You know he isn't fit for it, so you don't want to let him have the position. If you don't want to keep being alpha when you get there to keep the pack safe, find someone and train them up for the position and hold the beatings… excuse me, _elections_ again. Even your elders can't complain if you smack them in the face with the obvious reasons why you're better than him."

"… Thanks."

"For telling you what you already knew? You're a strange one, Tsume."

"Pot, meet kettle." The Inuzuka rolled to her feet, whistling for her nin-kin. "I've got to run, Natsumi. Catch ya later."

The duel eyed kunoichi waved lazily, watching Kakashi pout when Kuromaru left the Hatake clan compound. "Hey, Kashi-chan. Wanna explore more of the yard now that the doggies are gone?"

\V/

Three months after Tsume literally beat out the other contenders for Inuzuka clan alpha, two more border patrol missions each, and one birthday for Sakumo's son later, Jiraiya came back to the village to check in with his students in the village and let them off the chakra reserves expanding task he set them on.

Natsumi, now with the physical age of sixteen, had almost reached the height she would probably stay for the rest of her life with maybe an inch or two difference in a few more years.

She wasn't happy with it at _all_.

"Everyone's still _taller_ than me, sensei! I'm a freaking _midget!_"

Minato was down and out howling with laughter at his sempai on the ground, who was glaring at both him and the snickering but trying to hide it Jiraiya. The blond had shot over her head sometime in the last couple of months, instead of almost keeping even with her he was now inching about a solid half a foot over her and it looked like he had another few inches to go. Even Kushina was getting taller than Natsumi was by a hair's breath, and she was nearly a full year of growth behind the assassin.

The misplaced soldier was standing at five feet even, give or take a half of an inch. She desperately missed her five feet and seven almost eight inches she used to have.

The Toad Sage heaved in a few deep breaths, carefully not looking at the full foot and change shorter than him kunoichi assassin. "You know that… that _may_ be from AnBu, neko-chan."

"From stunting my initial growth with late childhood starvation. Yeah, Tsunade-sama read me the riot act when I complained with her nearby." Natsumi scowled and crossed her arms under her chest. "Not the point. I wasn't this short in my last life and _I want my height back, damn it!_"

Even Shikaku was starting to pick on her for being shorter than the apparent giants she was keeping company with, claiming she just kept him around to reach the top shelf of the cupboards for her. And while that may be slightly true because he _did_ have longer arms that she did and could reach up there without needing a slight jump or three or even chakra assistance, the assassin was sure it wasn't nice of her intended husband. Even more annoyingly, in her opinion, she beat out Kushina's bust size by a fair bit. Natsumi wasn't quite as well-endowed in the chest as Mikoto, but on her height she was ridiculously curvy.

Petite and curvy now described her, nowhere near the lean and tall body she once had _and wanted back_. This being short thing was not a part of any deal she had made, thanks very much.

Natsumi glared at her stupidly tall, growing like a weed, and blond kouhai, who hurriedly tried to sober up and epically failed at it. "You can stop at any time, _thanks_."

"I've… got something that might cheer you up, neko-chan." The white haired sannin still couldn't look at her even as he rummaged around in his traveling pack. "I caught a glimpse of it and picked it up around River Country, and it made me think of you."

Taking the ancient looking scroll from him, the assassin peeled it open and glanced through the inside. She trusted Jiraiya to have checked it out already before handing it to her, he was a master of fuuinjutsu since that was what this writing looked like, and…

"_Leopards._" Natsumi leveled a flat look on her sensei. "The Leopard's Summoning Contract. I know you like your little nickname for me, even taicho pick it up a time or twice, but I am _not_ the shinobi version of that crazy civilian cat lady from down the road."

"I don't know, sempai. You-u got the crazy p-part down…" Minato couldn't find the breath to continue, laughing hard enough to make him curl up around his ribs.

Even Jiraiya broke down with his apprentice, completely giving up on trying not to laugh in her face.

Sticking her nose in the air, about mid chest level with the males currently having fun at her expense, the assassin tucked the scroll under her arm stalked off to find her old AnBu captain. He had stopped laughing at her late last month, so she might get some help out of him.

Natsumi may not have wanted a Summons Contract to begin with, the topic had just been a cover for knowing more fuuinjutsu than any other ninja not specializing in the art, but she wasn't going to say no now that she had one.

(ooo000ooo)

Sakumo grinned down at her, Natsumi scowled back up at him.

"If you need to laugh please do it _elsewhere_, taicho. I just had my kouhai and sensei do it in my face."

Her old AnBu captain smoothed out his expression, much better than Minato's pathetic attempts, looking back down at the Summoning Contract laying open between them. "Well… cats, neko-chan. I'm the Dog Summoner. There's a little problem here."

"With house cats, maybe. Your pack tries that with these cats and they might just _eat_ them, taicho." The assassin huffed, still scowling. "But I just need you to teach me the sequence for summoning, Jiraiya-sensei's a little… _indisposed_ at the moment."

The man nodded his silver head in agreement, one side of his mouth pulling up. "I can see… _why_ he may be slightly incapacitated for the time being."

Natsumi rolled her eyes and crossed her arms under her chest. "For fuck's sake, taicho. Get it over with."

Sakumo threw his head back and laughed, and even his old subordinate had an upward tilt to her lips by the time he was done.

"You have at least appreciate what he did, Natsumi-chan. In finding a contract for you, even if it's a minor one on the feline side of Summoning Contracts."

"Yeah, and just when everyone stopped laughing at me for the height thing they're going to start laughing at me for this." His apprentice shook her head, rubbing on side of her nose to try and hide the wry twist to her lips. "I can appreciate the thought and I know why he did it, kami _knows_ I should've expected it from _sensei_, but still."

Summons had multiple contracts with humans, varying from noble ones like the ones that the sannin held to the minor ones like the one Jiraiya had found for her. Noble summons contracts dealt with all the animal summons of a certain species, like how all the Toads, Slugs, and Snakes answered to one of the three sannin. Sarutobi Hiruzen held another noble contract for the Monkeys, covering from the Monkey King Emma to even baboons and spider monkeys. Sakumo held a minor one for canines, for the domesticated Dogs. If the Inuzukas could find the Wolf Contract, which was another of the noble contracts, even Sakumo's pack would answer to the holder of that contract unless the silver haired man summoned them to this world first. And now Natsumi could look forward to a crash course in how the feline hierarchy worked and exactly where the Leopards fell in that.

You didn't have to find a contract just to use it, you only really needed the hand signs for summoning. That was how Jiraiya found the Toads, preforming a summoning without being contracted for it let the Summons that fit you the best pull you into their world, and he spread the knowledge to the other two thirds of the sannin who called the Slugs and Snakes respectively. Reverse summoning was something that gave Natsumi nightmares, just like how the concept of summons themselves unnerved her. _That had not been possible_, as far as she had known, _in her last life_.

The AnBu had similar difficulties adjusting to _walking when upside down_ and _shuriken_, one was just simply impossible for her poor brain to overlook the motion and gravities' effect and the other was too unreal seeming to learn to throw. But she was too much a ninja now to let a little something like her own doubts prevent her from gaining another weapon, not shuriken because they still looked funny to her, in her arsenal to keep herself from at least trying this. And she had given it as an excuse to Jiraiya, so she would have to sign with the contract he found for her or try it herself to keep the sannin from questioning why she really didn't want a Summons Contract if she had looked into so much fuuinjutsu for one in the first place.

The assassin wouldn't try summoning the Leopards around her old AnBu captain even with the Dog and feline thing, because she never did figure out why Aki-sama had grinned at her when she was summoned after the attack on Eri and Kakashi. She didn't know how much summons talked to other species of different races, if Ma and Pa Toad had told any other Toads about her situation and if they ever talked to the other species, and she didn't really want to try explaining that to her taicho.

"Alright, _neko_-chan. Pay attention."

"_Finally_."

\V/

Jiraiya delayed his departure until both of his students that wanted a summons contract had at least signed them as summoners once they nearly drained themselves dry in calling up the leaders of the Summons Contracts and they accepted the new summoners. Natsumi may never get to the point of being able to summon the Leopard Queen in battle in her life, and _holy crap_ was Tamika-sama a _big kitty_, but Minato might be able to summon the Boss Toad eventually. The assassin amended that in her head to mean Minato would and she wouldn't, Jiraiya had just been trying not to flat out tell her she never would have the reserves for it.

That didn't mean the negotiations were not still ongoing for getting personal summons and not just being acknowledge for being _able_ to summon.

The misplaced soldier didn't really know what to make of the summons world and the creatures that came out of it even now that she had met the ones that came out of hers, there hadn't been anything _remotely_ like it in her last life, but like everything else that had tried to boggle her poor head and she had to deal with since she woke up here and could keep awake for longer than a few hours, she was just going to roll with it and try to fit it in later. A lot later.

As it turned out, yes the summons talked to each other. Not very well, it was more like a _haha I met this person of the human realm and you didn't _kind of thing, but the Leopards and their Queen knew who and what Natsumi was before she even started summoning their cubs to the human realm. It did mean a fair bit of fast talking to wrangle an agreement not to spread it any farther, but besides the initial almost panic attack it didn't look like it would be a problem for her.

Minato had more luck with the Toads right off the bat, they knew he was Jiraiya's student and were mostly accepting of him already. The only thing the Toads demanded in return was some occasional help in contacting Jiraiya, and his sempai thought it was terribly unfair her kouhai had it so easy.

So now face to muzzle with a good sized but apparently teenaged Leopard after more tries on her own resulting in cubs that she wanted to admit to, the assassin was trying to figure out what the Leopards wanted from her in return for summoning their pride members now that her name and blood was on their contract. "If you don't want that, what the hell do you want?"

The feline shrugged, heavy muscles rippling under his spotted fur coat. "Who said we wanted anything?"

"Isn't that how it works? No one does anything for free." Natsumi rubbed her face with both hands, frustrated. "I highly doubt you want blood like Orochimaru-sama's Snakes do, I can't see you trying to guide humans like Jiraiya-sensei's Toads, you don't specialize in healing like Tsunade-sama's Slugs, and I really, _really_ doubt you want to be summoned on occasion just to kick around a day every year like taicho's Dogs do."

Jin sniffed dismissively across from her. "_Dogs_."

He was pinned with an icy, duel eyed glare. "My _taicho's_ Dogs, thank you."

"Feisty little kitten." The Leopard rumbled approvingly. "What can you offer?"

The assassin opened her mouth… and then blinked. "Fish and milk and catnip… oh my."

The big cat rolled his eyes at her. "Warmer."

"Do I have to figure it out myself?"

"Do you think every other summoner was handed the answers on a silver platter? Yes, you have to find the way yourself."

"I'm mostly certain the Slugs were happy to help once Tsunade-sama started summoning them." Natsumi grouched, tugging the end of her hair. "I can… hell, I'm an _assassin!_ I don't think you want me to _kill_ something, so… I can train cubs to be sneaky and hunt?"

Jin all but purred as he rose to all fours. "I'll take your offer to the elders. Summon me again in two days."

The assassin blinked at the surge of smoke that marked Jin dismissing himself. "Seriously? … What the _hell?_"

(ooo000ooo)

Natsumi was the last one to show up at the Sarutobi clan compound, still trying to puzzle out what she had really offered the Leopards that Jin was happy to take.

Still thinking about it to the point Minato got close enough without being noticed to grab his sempai and tuck her under one of his arms. He was endlessly amused by how the height had worked out between the two of them. "So tell me you're finally done with talking to that cat."

"Um… I think? Jin-san took the offer to the Leopard Elders, and I'll find out if they agree in two days." Natsumi grabbed the arm laying over her shoulder and bent it backwards. "Now stop it, kouhai. I can still beat your ass if you annoy me… if I'm quick enough."

The blond winced at the strain, trying to smile politely at his shorter sempai and not grimace. "But I wanted to _know_…"

"Yes, and now you do." The assassin patted the fuuinjutsu user on the arm that had been on her a moment ago. "Why though?"

"Because signing a Summons Contract and successful negotiation with said summons gets us a promotion, sempai." Minato grinned at her even as he rubbed his sore elbow. "I'm tokubetsu or full jounin as soon as I pass the test spar, and if you finish with the Leopards soon you can get promoted with me."

Natsumi almost missed the step the two of them were going up to get inside Hiruzen's home. "What, really? I thought we would have to run a crazy amount of C or B-ranked missions to catch up with the others."

Fugaku had gotten his tokubetsu promotion, on the technicality of Police patrols being missions inside the village, around the time Tsume was beating her clan black and blue, and Hiashi took the promotion board instead of completing the necessary mission experience for his just before Hizashi hit his cap and they both took the spar at the same time. Shikaku, Inoichi, and Chouza had a few more missions as chuunins left to do before they could attempt to pass the jounin spar because they were holding out for more Intelligence missions to troubleshoot their team formation tactics, and Mikoto was dragging her feet about her missions as well since she was waiting on Kushina to catch up. Natsumi had thought she and Minato would be somewhere behind Kushina, even if they had alternated between taking missions and Jiraiya's task for the last year.

Instead of an exam with other villages possibly _in other_ villages like for chuunin promotions, there was a necessary mission cap and a formally tested spar against a full jounin in your specialization to even get tokubetsu jounin in Konoha. You didn't have to win, that was the full jump straight to jounin from chuunin and what you needed to do before being fully promoted from tokubetsu, but you did have to last a certain amount of time against the elites in your field to be promoted. If for whatever reason you couldn't run the missions needed, there was a board to show you had the technical knowledge and skills before taking the spar.

She also knew exactly where Tsume and Shibi had been stuck before their promotion, right between missions and the spar. The two of them won the spar, but the qualified on missions part was what had tripped them up while they still had issues with each other. Leaving just tokubetsu jounin for them once Natsumi straightened them out, and they could take the spar again in a year after their first attempt. That was coming due sometime soon, so both the new alpha for the Inuzukas and the new head of the Aburame clan would probably get jounin about the same time.

Apparently, getting rare skill sets like summoning also qualified you on the technical side and skate on the mission experience. Then again, there were not many in the village who could summon, so Natsumi could see why that was. A bit like a piece of dangling bait to entice more shinobi to picking up the rarer skills, and a way to keep that experienced ninja happy if the skills took a long while to learn or could possibly end up in chakra depletion for learning. Summoning was chakra intensive, really something you should only learn at high chuunin and tokubetsu jounin levels.

But Naruto, being the little chakra monster he was, had learned it at genin and it was hard to remember that wasn't normal. Jiraiya had also done it at a very early age, but he had already admitted Hiruzen had worked them into expanding their normal chakra reserves before that.

There also were not that many fuuinjutsu users in Konoha, maybe about four counting Natsumi. "Who would you go up against?"

Minato shrugged, not particularly worried about it. "Hiruzen-sama said it might just be a general combat jounin I'll have to test against. But still, promotion!"

Tsunade smirked over at the two of them. "Are we sure you're mature enough for it?"

The blond went beet red, muttering his apologies to Biwako even as Natsumi politely greeted the older woman and their Hokage. "Sorry sir. I'm trying to house train him, but it isn't working."

Minato shot her a sideways mock glare even as their kage chuckled at them.

Asuma, now four, and Kakashi were meeting one another on the floor in the middle of the room. The almost two and a half year old silver haired toddler had just started speaking simple but basic sentences and hadn't started walking so much as running everywhere now, and Eri had decided it was time for her son to learn what other children were like. Sakumo hadn't protested, probably because his mouth had been full last night at dinner. So now the man was watching carefully as the Hokage's youngest son was introduced to his own son by his wife. Natsumi was pretty sure Nawaki was outside still, probably badgering on the other Sarutobi clan child to teach him some ninja skills since they were supposed to join the academy next year. She didn't have much to do with Sarutobi Koichi, the kid was about the same age as Senju Nawaki but the assassin had done more babysitting for Tsunade than Biwako.

She did know both boys didn't survive between now and the beginning of the next generation's shinobi careers. Nawaki would be the first half of the push to get Tsunade to abandon the village and go on one hell of a drinking binge, and Koichi probably only lived long enough to sire Konohamaru before getting killed himself. Part of the reason she wasn't going to argue about what kind of rank she should have, keeping them both alive probably wouldn't be as fundamentally changing as keeping her taicho alive, but they were important to her precious people and to keep them alive she would need the rank to look over the missions they would be taking and the Intelligence from the regions to catch what had killed them.

Coming up on where the not so much younger anymore generation were congregated, Natsumi broke off from her kouhai's side to slide into Shikaku's lap, who leaned back to accommodate her seating choice even as he kept talking to Chouza. "You all _suck_."

Kushina giggled, flushing slightly when Minato took the seat open next to her. "Still going on about the height problem you seem to have, Natsumi?"

The assassin smirked faintly, internally damning the utterly confusing suffix problem she had all her life here suddenly being dropped on her. There wasn't much of a point to them anymore, they were at the age the civilians would accept being adults at and didn't have to play along at being children giving each other a social kind of rank. She didn't know they had been playing along, she thought it was social custom here, vaguely recalling the same had been usual custom in the old Japan she had known. Shikaku had to tell her one night over a go board why ninjas did it to the poor confused soldier wondering why her teachers still did it to them if they didn't between each other anymore. It was easier to call each other by name if they didn't have to keep up with each other's tags on missions, so that's what they did. Unless you had a rank even civilians would respect, Hokage, clan head, even sannin, once a ninja hit between fifteen and sixteen the tags were dropped in casual conversation because they were all shinobi.

"Sort of… maybe."

The red head stuck her tongue out at her. "Should've drank your milk, then."

Chouza nodded firmly at the comment, and he looked very confused when the Uzumaki Princess started laughing.

Since it had been something Natsumi had told Kushina a lot when she had been cooking for all the orphans, the jinchuuriki was gleeful over the tables being turned with her whole inch over the assassin's head.

Shikaku hooked his chin over her shoulder and wrapped his arms around her waist, a grin stretching his mouth up at the corners. "You don't have to be annoyed, Natsumi. I've got more than we both need." He knew the story just as well as she did, and was amused by the whole thing.

"Hush you."

\V/

Three weeks after Jin had returned with a positive answer from the Leopard Elders and instructions on when to summon and how to train their younger pride members, Natsumi and Minato were facing off with the jounins selected to test them for their promotion.

Sakumo had given the assassin a katana of her own that morning, claiming it was a graduation present for her mastery of kenjutsu and wishing her luck. The slightly curved sword was mostly standard, it had the ripple pattern of Damascus steel on the blade and the hilt was wrapped in the diamond pattern with black cloth over red lacquer, but for the slightly dangling charm her taicho had temporarily added to the end. A seated cat charm now in her chuunin vest's pocket.

The cat theme she had going on made Natsumi wonder if she really was that shinobi version of the crazy cat lady. Like Minato had said, she was crazy enough for it.

The assassin was facing off with a jounin specializing in kenjutsu, amusingly enough. She wondered if she hadn't been taught the ninja art of the sword exactly what specialty she would be facing against for her promotion, because assassins didn't seem like a class that left their opponents alive very often. The AnBu called Panther was also sure the jounin across from her didn't know exactly what else she knew, he had looked fairly contemptuous at the sight of her standing in the ring.

Natsumi slid her eyes to where the Hokage was standing to observe the promotion spars. Hiruzen nodded to show he both understood her intended question and it was allowed.

Apparently all skills meant any kinjutsu known as well.

(ooo000ooo)

"I can't believe you gave the jounin testing you a concussion."

"Hey! He was a sexist little bastard. What else did you think I was going to do?"

Tsunade's lips twitched, healing the gash she had gotten on the back just before she made her opponent run into a wall head first. "Well, Hiruzen-sensei heard it and he's going to be getting to know a few Yamanaka's in the near future. The serious concussion was a little over the top, my little shadow."

The assassin suppressed the desire to snort, knowing the Slug Princess wouldn't appreciate the moving surface to heal. "And what would have happened to him if he said it to you?"

"They would still be picking parts of him out of the wall, of course." The Senju heiress sniffed haughtily. "But I highly doubt he would have had the balls to say it to my face."

Natsumi hummed, keeping herself from twitching under the older woman's hands. Healing skin was itchy. "I just hope that was enough for my promotion, it wasn't much of a spar."

"It's not the chuunin exams, it didn't _have_ to be an exhibition bout. Besides, you're a kunoichi specializing in assassination that went up against a shinobi specializing in kenjutsu, by the handicap alone you would have been promoted anyways even if you lost."

"What handicap?"

The sannin tapped her back to let the misplaced soldier know she was done, smirking at the confused expression aimed at her before the younger kunoichi redressed herself. "The handicap of odd knowledge mix. Kenjutsu isn't your _main_ specialty, after all."

Natsumi blinked, surprised that she had that taken in consideration for her promotion. "Then Minato's getting promoted anyways too?"

"Tokubetsu, yes. The spar's just for figuring out if he's good enough like you for the full jump."

(ooo000ooo)

"There. What's that saying you like to use? Easy as cake?"

"Easy as pie. Or a piece of cake. You're an _idiot_, Minato."

The newly promoted jounin hummed, still grinning. "Hey, it's been _years_ since I heard you say that last."

"… Hiashi and Fugaku-sama are going to be _pissed_."

Natsumi was looking forward to it, she couldn't get the grin off her face either.

Minato had _wiped the floor _with the _combat ninjutsu specializing jounin_ he had been paired up against. The assassin had made it back to the arena in time to watch and could see _exactly_ how her blond kouhai became the Fourth Hokage from that fight alone, he may not be as smart as Shikaku or as easily able to understand as she could, but he was a genius in his own right with picking jutsus apart and predicting how they worked. Even when they were in the process of being used against him.

But still, her kouhai had apparently been training himself and his reflexes to take over testing the hiraishin seal. She was so proud of him.

It was also a bit of a wakeup call about the blond's level of skill and even her own, because other than the odd times he faced off with the others of their group nowadays she normally saw him working on his fuuinjutsu seals behind his table. Natsumi had never noticed because _she had been there_ for all the skill building, still thinking they were maybe around mid chuunin level when in actuality they seemed to have been tokubetsu jounin material a year ago. She had forgotten Minato was a genius, insanely fast and able to keep up with the same speedy thinking and reactions even when in constantly shifting battles. She was just so used to trying to figure out how to sneak up on him and how to out twitch her own taicho to recall they both were legends, way too amused at making her blond's voice crack and having fun crossing swords with Sakumo to realize that even she was able to keep up with the insanely talented duo.

Her adorable little kouhai she had taught to stretch and bend had at some time became the young man who was known as the Yellow Flash . . . as soon as the two of them solved the vellum problem.

And that would be solved the moment she got Kushina to tell Minato about Kurama on her own.

Thank _kami-sama_ Minato had noticed her unease of giving him the vellum in the first place and had stored it until he needed to work out what was disturbing her about it. Him asking her once he had decided on a final version of the hiraishin seal about the leather she had given him to replace the paper had reassured Natsumi that she had at least not screwed up however this little series of events should have gone, or at the very least she couldn't horribly botch it all up still.

\V/

"You _need_ to tell him, Kushina. I can't stall him on this for much longer."

The red head was helping her move into her new apartment, as well as Mikoto who was sorting and folding her clothes and weaponry in her bedroom. The only bad thing about jounin standard apartments was that they now did have to pay rent, but they had a little guest room included in the floor plan. Natsumi wasn't sure what the hell she was going to do with that room, there wouldn't be much time until Shikaku got his own promotion and she would be moving again just before their wedding, but it was looking like it would be simply storage space for the moment.

Said jinchuuriki sighed and looked forlornly at Natsumi's genin team picture of them all at twelve standing before Jiraiya, hanging on the wall near her bedroom. "I know, it's just…"

_You like him more than just as a friend._ "Look, it's _Minato_. He'll understand. Kami-sama, hime, he understood about _me_ and he was eight at the time. You won't be much of a stumbling block."

Kushina fidgeted, placing a hand over where the seal on her was located. "I-I _know_, Natsumi, dattebane."

The resurrection of the Uzumaki verbal tick was a bad sign. The assassin did a bit of sighing herself, setting the last of her dishes in the cupboards she could reach from her current position. "I just don't want him finding out that-"

The red head looked up when the AnBu cut herself off. "That what?"

"That's what I'd like to know." Minato spoke up from the open doorway.

The blood drained out of Kushina's face and Natsumi knocked her head against her cupboard door that was shiny enough for her to see who had been standing there. "Hello, kouhai. How long have you been there?"

"Long enough. Care to explain?"

"_I_ can't."

"_You_ can't." The blond repeated, easily seeing the hint and putting it with the topic of the previous conversation. "But _Kushina_ can?"

The assassin hummed, looking at exactly how the red head was taking this development. From the set expression on her face, it seemed Kushina finally got that last push to admit to Minato what she knew of leatherwork in sealing. "I'm going to put up my privacy seals, kick Mikoto out of my bedroom, then go bother Shikaku. Sound good, hime?"

Kushina nodded firmly, looking more like she was going to be marching to her death than telling a friend and possible husband about the tiny detail of the demon residing in her gut. "Thanks, Natsumi."

(ooo000ooo)

"So, not that I'm complaining mind you, why are you spending the night if you have a new apartment to live in?"

"There's way too much drama going on there at the moment."

Shikaku blinked down at her. "Drama?"

Natsumi snorted, stretching out on the Nara's bed. "Despite what Kushina thinks, I'm sure it's not as bad as she was expecting."

The genius hesitated, one hand almost to the light switch. "Can you tell me what it was about?"

"No, for the same reason I couldn't be the one to tell Minato."

"Oh, I see what you mean about drama."

The assassin blinked, not expecting that. "Shikaku, do _you_ know already?"

"About the jinchuuriki laws and all that? Yeah. I got to wondering why you were frowning over the gift you were giving your kouhai, and why you gave it without the seals needed if you had asked me about them in the first place."

The misplaced soldier blinked again in the sudden darkness. "You _rock_, Shikaku."

"And I still can't figure out why that's a good thing to you."

(ooo000ooo)

Minato did get mad over the issue, but not at Kushina or Natsumi for keeping it from him.

The blond's rant against the unfairness of turning perfectly good people, okay… _shinobi_ maybe but _still_, into living weapons had to be contained by the AnBu's normal secrecy seals reinforced with a hurried few more by the jinchuuriki, given by what she had heard when Natsumi walked into her own apartment the next morning and by the look of the ink on her walls.

All it really did was increase Kushina's almost painfully obvious crush on Minato.

The assassin just thought it was funny that Minato's crush on the red head blinded him to that little fact of life. Sometimes thought it was funny, most often it was the kind of thing you just wanted to smash said person's face into repeatedly until they got with the program.

The small little fact that the two of them were still awake and talking the morning after was hilarious. Especially pointing it out to the both of them that they seemed to have spent the night together.

Kushina, beet red but recovering beautifully, planted her hands on her hips and glared over to the assassin smirking at the both of them. "And just where were you last night, young lady? If you're going to pick on us-"

"_I_ spent the night with Shikaku." Natsumi interrupted the jinchuuriki, a wicked grin lifting the corner of her lips. "If you really want to know."

Minato groaned in pain, covering his eyes and slumping into the assassin's couch. "I _don't_ need to_ know,_ sempai."

The duel eyes of the misplaced soldier's gleamed with her suppressed laughter. "Well… hime did ask, kouhai."

The fifteen year old Uzumaki had her face buried in her hands. "I'm _so sorry_, Minato."

"Right, I'm going to bed." Her soon to be sixteen almost younger-since-he-wasn't-so-small-anymore brother shot her a blue eyed glare as he got up. "_Alone_, sempai. Get your head out of the gutter."

"I didn't say anything."

"You don't have to."

The assassin hummed her amusement, watching the young blond man leave the apartment with as much haste as he could get away with without looking like he was running from the two kunoichi. Natsumi turned to grin at Kushina, and the red head squeaked in embarrassment and returned to her beet red complexion.

"You're a mean, mean woman."

"I've been this way for _years_, hime. You're just catching on now."

\V/

Jiraiya came back to the village a third time, a few months early, just in time to witness Natsumi trying to teach a five year old Leopard cub how to stalk living things using her supposedly napping intended.

Shikaku was highly amused, the Toad Sage was very confused, and Kenta learned how to pounce on a slightly moving target… but he pounced on the wrong one.

"Sorry sensei. The Leopards have me teaching some cubs in return for summoning them." The assassin took back the now curious spotted cat, about an armful of heavy feline, back from the much taller man.

"And has nothing to do with the fact you're still mostly annoyed by the height thing." Her still chuunin intended added dryly, catching sight of the irritation on the misplaced soldier's face and going back to napping quickly.

"Coward." Natsumi sniffed in his direction.

"Smart man." Jiraiya countered, pulling a face at the cat still watching him as he rubbed at the claw marks on his head. "Finally found how to deal with them?"

"Teaching cubs." Dropping the cat back to the forest floor of the Nara clan's training grounds, the assassin turned back to her old genin sensei curiously. "What brings you back?"

"I need to talk with Hiruzen-sensei… and I may have heard a bit of a blond jounin's seal work and a concussion you gave the testing jounin for your promotion spar."

"Oh come on! That concussion was not the worst thing I've ever done to a comrade!"

"… Do I want to know?"

"… Probably not."

(ooo000ooo)

"So you fixed it for combat use?"

"Mostly. It still takes a lot to get used to, sensei."

"It's not that bad."

"We're not asking you, sempai." Minato gave her and exasperated look from over his shoulder. "You said, and here I quote, 'That's freaking _awesome_' about the first series of seals you tested for me. I am never trusting you with anything dealing with speed ever again. The one time I did it myself was bad enough."

Natsumi stuck her nose in the air. "Well, I can see when I'm not wanted."

"Shut _up_, sempai."

"No." The assassin stuck her tongue out at the blond's back before turning to their amusedly grinning sensei. "The first versions were overpowered, the second ones had a location compress error, made you end up farther from the kunai than Minato wanted, the third one-"

Minato finally turned around and fully glared at her, so Natsumi shut up with a smirk. "We do _not_ need to go through the error with the _third_ one, _thank you_ sempai."

The blond was sitting at his dinner table, the duel eyed young woman sitting on his couch yet again, and their sensei was across from the blond at the table.

"Okay, children." The Toad Sage interjected, wondering what the hell it was about the third version that had the assassin all but snickering to herself. "Can you _use_ it?"

"Yes sensei." Now even Minato was smirking. "I used it in a spar with Fugaku just last week without a problem. I kicked his _ass_."

\V/

All that hubbub over Kushina's little secret and the two of them had yet to go out on a date half a year later. Natsumi rubbed the bridge of her nose, trying to keep the smirk off her face as she listened to Minato work himself up over the hime's little freeloader problem.

They were inking the hiraishin seals onto the vellum cut to fit the blond's kunai… well, she was. The assassin was using the repetitive motion of dragging the tip of the inky brush over leather to tune out her kouhai's feelings over the feisty red head they both knew well.

"Are you even listening?"

"Nope." Natsumi finished her tenth seal and set it aside to dry and be waterproofed before wrapping it around a hilt of a three pronged kunai. "Look, if you like her that much ask her out on a date."

The crack of Minato's dried brush breaking in half caused the assassin to look up at him. "Seriously, Natsumi. Stop joking about that."

Not intimidated in the least, the duel eyed kunoichi set down her brush and narrowed her eyes back at the blond. "What makes you sure I'm not serious?"

"Because you never are when you talk like that." Minato shoved a hand through his hair, scowling. "I can admit it was funny the first few times, but it's not anymore."

"Have you ever watched Kushina react to it?" Natsumi asked him almost idly. "She turns beet red and fidgets. I make jokes about her and any of the others, even her and me, and she'll run with it now."

Her sometimes thick kouhai blinked in surprise, mouth open.

"I've been trying to clue the two of you in to what the rest of us can see in a method that wouldn't embarrass you in front of the other." The assassin paused, then amended her sentence. "Well, in a way that wouldn't embarrass you two too much."

"She likes me?"

"Yes."

"… Oh."

"Oh dear kami-sama, I've seemed to have broken your poor little brain." Natsumi dodged the bits of wood left over from Minato's broken brush. "Are you going to stop acting like a child now?"

Her fellow jounin frowned at her. "You could be nicer to me, you know. Since I've been the butt of your jokes for years."

"Hey. I've taught you flexibility, helped you learn fuuinjutsu, was on your genin team, cooked more than just a little for the both of you, taught you to pack for long missions, passed the chuunin exams with you, helped you with this seal concept of yours to the point I was risking ligament damage, went through a nauseating chakra pool expanding exercise with you for the last year, learned to summon next to you, and now took the jounin spar with you. Quite honestly, I think I deserve a raise for dealing with you young whippersnappers, damn it. I'm almost forty five years old… kinda sorta in a backwards way."

Twitching lips gave lie to Minato's serious expression. "Well, I can see how you might feel that way Honorable Elder. I will consider it… as soon as you help me think of somewhere to take Kushina on a date."

"What?" The assassin yelped, smirking. "You-you… _men_… just, _really?_"

"Well… you're a girl. Kushina's a girl. I'm not."

"That's a mite bit obvious, Minato." Pinching her fingers until they almost touched, the assassin opened her mouth to complain about being called a _girl_ next… and paused.

"What?"

"What do you mean what?"

"You just stopped. That means you thought of something." The sixteen year old's blue eyes narrowed on her, telling her that he fully intended to keep her there until she spilled whatever idea she had gotten.

"Maybe… you know, Kushina likes ramen." At the deadpan expression Minato gave her Natsumi held up one finger to keep him quiet. "I found a quaint little ramen shop that just opened near the Hokage's Tower a few days ago. I was going to take hime there tomorrow… but it seems I might be unfortunately busy with a little sliver haired gaki I tend to babysit every now and again."

"You're _brilliant_, sempai."

"Hmm… I am, aren't I? Now, about that raise."

The name of the ramen shop was Ichiraku's, and something about the place had bugged her until she had the idea to take the Uzumaki teen there, then it somehow felt right to her to offer it for her kouhai's date . . . and she didn't know why. It was like having an itch in the back of your head, something about it was important but she just couldn't remember why it was important.

\V/

The mission office for jounin was the third floor of the Hokage's Tower, chuunin had the second and genin reported to the first. There was the usual line to hand in mission reports, a map of the Elemental Continent, as far as Konohagakure knew it, on the far wall behind the mission desks, a few couches and filing cabinets of current Intel gathered from other Countries, and a wooden board that took up a full wall with the missions needed to be taken.

Natsumi was currently browsing the available missions' wall yet again, trying vainly to recall if she ever knew _what_ mission to where her taicho had taken that started the Third Great Shinobi War. She knew it had to have been one that required more than one jounin, there had to be teammates involved for Sakumo to save, and that it had to be one of the higher ranking ones.

But… some missions required a specific specialty to be completed and if a team or single shinobi didn't have that specific skill the rank and risk was just upped to a higher difficulty rank and trying to find it by rank wasn't helping her.

There were a number of things that affected the ranks given to missions. Things like how far away it was, how many ninja were needed, what kind of combat would be seen, enemy shinobi known to be in the area, what kind of skill it would take for completion, how long it was expected to take, could all change on ninja to ninja basis because what was difficult for her might not be to Minato and so on so forth. It was likely Natsumi could take a whole year to look though each and every one currently posted and never find the one that killed her taicho in another life.

It was… _frustrating_, she had thought that once she got to jounin she might be able to _do_ something about the stupid mission, either take it herself in his place or accidently injure the older looking man before he left.

But it was so _different_ than what she had thought it was. Not the whole jounin thing, she had somewhat expected this.

It was how this generation she was part of was turning out. She had the vague idea that all Uchihas were massive dicks, the Hyuugas had some uncomfortable poles shoved in unmentionable places, the Shika-Ino-Cho formation had been there forever, and Minato had been _that_ good when she was five.

As it was, she had a fair few friends in the Uchiha clan who weren't part of the main house who were pretty cool, the Hyuugas got over themselves a little about the seals they used, Shikaku was only now developing and troubleshooting the tactics for the infamous Intelligence snatch and grab team up, and her kouhai could be an idiot sometimes. Eri was alive… _Kakashi_ had a _mom_. Hizashi had gotten help for Neji before he had even been _conceived_. The Hyuuga clan head and the Uchiha heir were actually good friends if you turned your head to the side and squinted a little… and ignored that it was a friendship based mostly on who had bragging rights that week.

It just… it wasn't bad, but she didn't know what had _caused_ it all. Had she mistook the situations she read about, or had there been more than she could see within the pages of those books she had only read for a short while in another life?

Wandering to one of the couches to wait on Minato's ass, for a jounin that was rated exceptional in speed you'd think he be on time more often, Natsumi took a corner seat and watched her fellow shinobi go about their work.

It couldn't have been her, right? The Uchiha heir being friends with the Hyuuga clan head had come to a complete surprise to her, she had thought they only tolerated each other for Minato's sake. That had somehow come to light when she and the rest of her genin team had been in Suna, so neither her kouhai nor she had been the push for that.

Eri she would take full responsibility for, seeing as Natsumi had killed her assassins before Iwa could kill her. And for that matter, any changes to Sakumo and Kakashi were her own fault. She didn't think the previous versions of them would quibble over the affront of nosing into their lives, though. Kami-sama knew they would be better off in any different fates than the ones she recalled.

Then there was Shikaku, Inoichi and Chouza. The other Shikaku might… _might_ have actually been _happy_ with his other wife, and just drank to drink. Inoichi might have had all the psychology tricks she taught him in time, from either picking it apart himself or from his clan's impressive collection of data on how the human mind worked. And Chouza… probably would still be Chouza, Natsumi couldn't conceive of the mild-manner clan heir to the Akimichis being anything other than what he was in any reality.

Hiashi and Hizashi were another two she couldn't figure out. They were close, more like halves of the whole than just brothers, so how did it end up with Neji sealed under the branch house and Hinata so submissive? There had to have been something that she did to that, but all she had done was listen to the younger twin about his problems. The assassin hadn't even done anything else for him, simply outlined what he had told her in blunt terms and set a few options out for him. She had been planning on helping, but Shikaku beat her 'kill the elders' idea out with the new clan seal.

Mikoto and Fugaku were a little surprising too. Other than the Uchiha bride's friendship with the Uzumaki demon container, Natsumi had thought Mikoto had been the perfect house wife and Fugaku had been the overworked Chief of Police. Mikoto, who was more likely to tell Fugaku to shut up when he got on his high Uchiha horse. Fugaku, who had a surprising flair for research into chakra differences and jutsu use and was just as likely found in the main Uchiha Police Station as in the Uchiha clan library.

And last but not least, Minato and Kushina. Minato was… an _epic_ little brother to have, but he could be a little dense sometimes and someone who couldn't cook for himself worth a damn. Kushina was the mischievous red headed spitfire she had thought, but the young woman had a strange obsession about being happy with a family she pushed on each of her female friends.

The assassin looked up in time to see the very blond she had been thinking of walking into the jounin assignment hall with a slightly ragged looking Sakumo.

"_Damn_, taicho. Which cat dragged you in? I want that one to summon."

The older looking jounin slapped at his old apprentice's head, not phased in the least that he missed by a good foot. "Hush you. I just got back from an emergency mission from Kiri, and I just want to crash. Congrats on setting the date for joining the Nara clan, yes Eri, Kakashi, and I will be there for the wedding." The man gave them both a backwards wave and a yawn as he joined the line to turn in his mission completion to the desk, probably with plans to write up his report once he woke up again.

The assassin got to her feet with a smirk directed to her kouhai. "So? How did the date go?"

The young man standing next to her flushed red, not meeting her eyes even when she was standing just before him. "Shut it. Don't you want to know where Sakumo-sama has been?"

"Erm… sure? I'll still get how the date worked out from either of you, so stall all you want."

Minato gave his sempai an exasperated glower, which was not effective at all with the blush going up his face. "The mission to Kiri was a diplomatic one to one of the clans out there. We might be getting another clan in Konoha. It was an emergency because there had been some hints sensei heard that Mist is going to try to stamp out their clans."

So the start of the Bloody Mist? Well… there really wouldn't be much she could do about that for the moment, if ever. "And so?"

"If your taicho had been caught at it, it might have started another war. I still wonder what the hell the Mizukage is thinking… sempai?"

Natsumi blinked her blue eye, then her green one, trying to understand the last few seconds and exactly what her kouhai had told her. "_What?_"

Her mind, trained to understand human nature and find enemy movement in conflicting reports from another life, found the answer almost instantly now that it was directed at the problem in the right way.

If Eri hadn't been there to take care of Kakashi, Sakumo would have had to take short but high paying missions when he could get them to both keep them supported and take care of his son. Those short but high paying missions were mostly bodyguard missions for fat civilians that didn't need shinobi protection and assassinations of idiots that pissed off wealthy people. Neither of which were very challenging to _Natsumi_, not to mention the man who _taught_ her for the last year and a half, to take care of. And with the short economic depression that happened between the village switching from a wartime footing to a peacetime one, Sakumo might have been forced to take even lower ranked missions just to keep himself and Kakashi fed and warm and see him more than once or twice every three months.

With Eri there to take care of Kakashi and keep him safe and happy, Sakumo had the leeway to take the missions he was _specialized_ for… not just the ones that would let him return the fastest and with the most money. Her taicho specialized in kenjutsu and leading difficult infiltration missions for AnBu, infiltrations that were known to take a good while to complete and something he might not have had the time to afford taking. He may have become known as the White Fang of Konoha in the prior situation, but nicknames that flattered a specific shinobi weren't always good ones since they were given mostly by civilians outside of a hidden village to the shinobi that worked for them a lot.

This version of Sakumo may not be as famous to the point even civilians knew of him… but he was a bit more polished in skill than the other one. Even still, Hatake was a clan name almost every ninja had at least heard of, the ninja clan that had been samurai once. It was why Iwa tried to kill Eri, panicking over the Hatake clan being continued because Sakumo was a big enough thorn in anyone's side for everyone outside of Konoha to really want the man to have a son or two to continue the bloodline.

Eri's death _had_ been the beginning of the end for Sakumo… but not in the way the assassin had thought. It had closed the opportunity to both raise his own son and keep up with his ninja career, eventually ending in a decline of his more specialized skills even if his son was healthy. A high risked, emergency mission he failed and started the hidden villages to warring again would have been the last straw for the overworked single father.

It was why most single parent shinobi left their kids with either good friends or the orphanage. Trying to keep up with a growing child and C or above ranked missions was neigh on impossible.

And then with the Hyuuga branch house seal, _Natsumi _had been the _catalyst_ for it by simply listening and agreeing that Hizashi had a problem. Shikaku, thoughtful and considerate as he was even if he probably would had preferred to nap through it all, had done most of the footwork for it with a few of the others' help, but the only reason the younger of the twins had approached him for help was because she hadn't been in the village when Hiashi agreed they _had_ a problem. She had been the only variable added to the story she could only hazily recall now, giving the generation she interacted with a broader support base through keeping her little secret and Minato's academy leadership test. They knew each other well enough now to seek assistance when one could help with more than what they could do on their own, and that might not have happened before without her cracked mental nuts to be concerned over when they were young enough not to care about clan politics or social status.

Indirectly, she had given her precious people the tools to save themselves, Hizashi someone to kick him in the ass about his concerns and saving Eri for Sakumo and Kakashi. It was kinda horrible in the fact that so little had actually been _needed_ to change a few major things that ended so badly for a number of people, and trippy in the way that she had done more than she realized in just _being_ there.

Natsumi ran a hand over her face, rubbing away the shock she just had. She seriously needed to know if this world was actually what that story she read once in another life was based on, or simply similar enough to mess with her head. And that meant a very long session trying to find out what she had affected and what had been done by the people around her themselves. "I… feel like you do nearly on a daily basis."

Minato blinked at her, still concerned. "Like what?"

"An idiot." The duel eyed, misplaced soldier ran the hand over the back of her neck next, still thinking about the series of events that had led her here. "Ever think so hard about a problem only to realize it wasn't a problem after the fact when the solution smacks you in the face?"

"Um… every now and again?"

Natsumi blinked when she caught sight of her kouhai's expression, giving him an apologetic quirk of her lips. "I want to go kill something. Wanna come with?"

"Your idea of therapy is creepy, sempai."

"It's better than Inoichi's. I'd swear he's more girly than me, in wanting to talk about _feelings_ all the damn time."

Minato hummed his amusement, keeping one eye on the shorter woman's pale face. She was gaining color back at a fairly rapid pace, so whatever it was couldn't be _that_ bad. "It's not that hard to be more girly than you, Natsumi." He was still going to let Shikaku know something had upset her that much, sometimes he worried for his slightly off in the head sempai.

"Hey!"

\V/

"Sneaky."

One duel eyed assassin barely twitched at the low voice over her head. She was thinking, damn it. Even sexy shadow users with newly grown goatees were not allowed to distract her. "Minato set you on me, didn't he?"

"Well… yeah." Shikaku admitted blandly, sitting down next to the kunoichi laying stretched out in the far end of the Uchiha clan compound's training grounds, not the Hokage's Monument like everyone would have thought she would be at. "You did kind of worry him by spacing out and nearly panicking in the middle of the jounin assignment hall."

"And I'm very, very sorry." Natsumi huffed, still running her mind over her current memories and her older ones before comparing them with the hazy ones from Fiona's life. "But damn is this shit confusing the hell out of me."

Settling down next to his soon to be wife, the Nara heir hummed lowly.

Knowing he wanted to know, and knowing there really wasn't any good way to explain what she knew to him, the assassin simply turned over and glared at him. "Why doesn't anything turn out like I expected it to? I… I'm trying to think what your lives would have been like without me."

Shikaku opened an eye. "Why?"

"Why not?" She countered irritably. "Was I supposed to be here? Why the hell do I recall another life? What… what would have happened to you all if I didn't follow after Minato when I was eight?"

"You really are sadistic." The Nara caught his fiancée and pinned her to him before she could get up. "Stop. Look, why does it matter? You _are_ here. Whatever may have happened without you won't happen at all because _you are here_, so there is no point in trying to make yourself sick over worries that really have nothing to do with anything anymore."

That was… probably for the best.

"Fucking genius."

"I can show you that."

Natsumi burst out laughing, amused that she seemed to have corrupted her intended husband.

"Just so you know, no woman likes being told their worries are not valid."

"I'll keep that in mind when I actually call something you're worried over invalid. I just agreed you were sadistic and asked if it mattered."

* * *

_AN#2 : So the cannon storyline is mostly unstable now, at least everything on the Konoha side is. Anything further that deviates from the original cannon is probably either part of the story or something I totally missed when I kind sort of followed Naruto before I enlisted into the army. There won't be another update for at least a good week or two... busy packing and moving and still working crappy job up to the move date. And I'm working on __**Deus ex**__'s next chapter next when I've got the time._


	6. Sentry Patrols and War

**Disclaimer : **I own my own bed! … finally. Still don't own this.

**Rating** : Err … M? Just to be safe.

**Author's Note : **So … I need a beta reader for this, since it doesn't look like it will stop any time soon and my grammar sucks ass. Any volunteers while I have the reviewer corrected files on hand?

I really hadn't intended for this story to go on so long, but my mental cart that held the plot left the rails back in part 2 since Jiraiya stepped in to bitch slap me and so many of you have expressed an interest in how Shikamaru would turn out with Natsumi as a mother… now I kinda want to find out too. So I have no idea where this is going now, after so long wavering over whether or not Natsumi was going to die like planned and finally deciding that bit of the plot was now scrapped. If you don't mind that I am apparently my muse's bitch and flat out failed English in high school… help?

I've also decided the previous five parts are now the prologue to this, covering the needed shinobi day to day life information and the growing years before this part and the next however many will follow since it seems that we've slowed down a hell of a lot. The titles are changing to match suit. Then we'll have the last section of the story, a few part long epilogue, which Natsumi will take a backseat for, either dead or still alive but just there, as the next generation deals with the remnants of whatever the nut job assassin couldn't deal with for them or just made worse. There may or may not be a time skip somewhere in there. Any objections?

**Oplindenfep** : Honestly? That's better than my very first attempt at writing. I found it a few years ago and deleted it after reading the first paragraph, none of it made much sense when I looked it over. At least your story has some plot to it.

**Juliedoo** : Thanks. I'm rather fond of the time period too. There's a hell of a lot to work with here that hasn't been done yet.

**Destrark **: Thank you. I'm very interested how Shikamaru will turn out too.

**monophonic **: Ta da. Crazy Nara cat lady.

**Mybffisazombie** : Fixed it. Both times in the first part and in the last part's reviewer replies. I hope I didn't damage your gerbil too badly.

**Jazbez** : Fun fact, I failed English in high school. I was only saved by my Social Studies grades and my math skills. Natsumi did start out as me, but she took on a life of her own after a while. I prefer minor and major things to snowball like this, there really are a lot of things in life that can be made better with just a slight amount of effort put forth. It's not the last time something will smack my nut-job assassin upside the head, but it was fun to write.

**Shannyrox101 **: Natsumi will be overjoyed to hear it, as soon as she figures out she hasn't stopped growing. I didn't know that was possible. I thought your friend might have been studying to be a nutritionist, but what your friend is doing is even cooler than I had thought at first.

**LilPurrfection** : Got them. I appreciate the help in figuring out where it was I screwed up. Honestly though, I don't have a problem with the amount of reviews I've been getting for this. I get about ten to twelve per chapter and you guys help me figure out where my English skills are failing, so I'm happy.

**ex-ellent **: No one really ever stops learning. Natsumi has the core of the skill sets she's going to have for her life, but there will be a few more tricks up her sleeves as she gets older. And she _can_ do the hirashin already, she just doesn't really like to do it since Minato's the one who gets famous for it.

**Thrill-Pair-All-The-Way** : I was actually talking about **XRaiderX1**, I know him from my Transformer/Halo/Star Wars fics. But I wouldn't mind getting to know you too. :)

**Sevenisthemagicnumber** : … Damn I suck. I fixed the duel vs dual problem, and took a stab at the quite vs quiet one. I'm pretty sure I got the summery vs summary one too. Thanks for pointing out where in the chapters I messed it all up in. I haven't actually watched Naruto past the genin years for the blond brat; I prefer reading the fics here. The confrontation about her last life, I really couldn't see much else to write for it. It was more of a 'Fuck, what could we say to _that_' kind of thing. I am working on the grammar and sentence structure, so it is really a work in progress. But still, thanks for the help.

**Falling Right Side-Up** : Thanks. All I'm going to say is I have plans for the canon… do you hear something screaming in terror?

Thank you** TheSecondOtherGuy**, **Guest** (X3), **blacklightningwolf**, **Wolferunner123**, **terfa**, **Katio**, **Ethyrin Kairos **and **Babyuknowme13**. Enjoy your five minuets of fame.

* * *

**Part 6 : Sentry Patrols and War**

_War is a conflict that determines not who is right, but who is left to say what is right._

_So why is it still one of the major course of action used to solve struggles between world powers?_

* * *

Natsumi pulled a face at herself in the mirror, inspecting the image of her standing in the full length mirror and holding her arms out to the side like Mikoto had told her to do. "Damn, that is kinda creepy."

Her face was getting tanner, no longer so pale now that she didn't run as many missions behind a painted clay mask and full body armor covering everything but her eyelids on occasion. It just highlighted her pale, two toned eyes even more than it had before to the point it really did look like her left blue eye had no color when in the right light. She still had those jolting moments of strangeness where she looked at her reflection expecting Fiona's face and saw Natsumi's far more familiar features, but those had become more than a little rare now a days with the vast amount of mirrors showing that she no longer had the soldier's strongly German influenced facial structure but the assassin's narrower face.

Sometimes it made her doubt she had ever lived another life, up until something meshed with that annoying little story she recalled reading and she could accurately predict what would happen next using it.

"You're a very _strange_ woman." Kushina told her frankly, still sorting out the various layers of silk to fashion the final layers of the assassin's wedding kimono. "You don't like to shop, you absolutely fail at color coordinating, and I don't think you've ever seen your full body in a mirror before."

"… I have. There just aren't many of these _this_ clear where I usually work and live." The dual eyed woman protested, shrugging her shoulders only to be stabbed in the back with a pin by Mikoto. "OW!"

"Stop moving, or I'll do worse and we'll have to pay the cleaning bill for getting blood out of silk too." The Uchiha kunoichi absently threatened the fidgeting woman, checking her work to ensure the misplaced soldier hadn't ruined her tailoring work.

Natsumi could no longer do it herself even if she had the skills from a previous life, because of the sharp nails the Leopard Summoning Contract had given her. They had shredded a fair bit of cloth and paper until the assassin caught on to what was going on with her thickening nails. So she now had a standing appointment with an industrial strength nail file every day she wasn't on mission, keeping the fast growing sharp points controlled unless they could be useful in clawing someone's eyes or throat out.

"Why the hell am I getting married first, anyways?" Natsumi grumbled, turning her head to inspect her full, silk draped form in the mirror again. "I always thought it would be you, Mikoto."

"Fugaku agreed to hold off on getting the last half of his own promotion until I got promoted, even if I am waiting for Kushina before attempting the spar." The genjutsu mistress answered the question smugly, straightening out the lay of the silk down the assassin's back. "It was very sweet of him."

Kushina held up a bolt of silk across the assassin's front, checking to see if it really did match the woman's coloring. "Your contract with the Nara clan just said until you both were tokubetsu or full jounin… _and_ Shikaku finally racked up enough Intelligence missions for his own promotion. So now you're getting hitched first."

Natsumi's lips twitched as she shot the Uchiha kunoichi measuring her arm's length a teasing look. "My hubby's better than yours."

Mikoto stabbed her with the pin again, but the assassin was sure it was on purpose this time. "Shush."

The dual eyed woman shot her a glare and started swearing under her breath.

"I think it's funny too," the red headed spitfire told her best friends, "that Shikaku got the full jump and not just the half step like Fugaku."

The next Lady of the Uchiha clan shot the jinchuuriki a glare of her own for validating the misplaced soldier's odd sense of humor. "I'm pretty sure he just did it so Natsumi didn't outrank him once they're married."

The next Lady of the Nara clan hummed her agreement, trying to fight off a grin and failing spectacularly. "Probably."

Mikoto sniffed disdainfully at the both of them. "Okay, Natsumi. You can shed the-" She blinked down at the pile of silks now on the floor. "-outer layers."

"Oops… oh well. Taking a break." Taking the step down, the nearly naked assassin turned to her friends while she rubbed the various pinpricks left in her skin. "That is freaking hard."

"Standing still?" Lips twitching as she fought down a smile, Kushina pulled the finished layers of the kimono off the floor and set them aside to be sewn up. "We do it for nobles and such when they want to intimidate their guests with a show of power by hiring ninjas for silly things like banquets and balls. Why are you so twitchy today?"

Rolling her arms up over her head and bending backwards to stretch out her lower and mid back as well as her shoulder muscles, Natsumi waited until she felt a few pops in her spine before answering. "Cause I hate being touched with pointy objects. Generally, it's a bad thing in our line of work."

"Like you can kill someone with a _pin_."

The assassin snapped back upright, grinning widely. "Wanna bet?"

Both Kushina and Mikoto shot a look to the corner where there were some rather large pins intended to hold long swaths of material together when sewing.

"I don't think we should take that bet, Kushina."

"Maybe not."

Barking a laugh, Natsumi winked over at them as she checked to make sure her small arsenal she brought with her was still all there. "Doubt me not, ladies. I will _prove_ you wrong."

Giving up on fitting the assassin for the kimono she would be wearing to her wedding for the time being, Mikoto turned to the politely smiling if a little pale looking matron of the tailoring shop the three of them were in. "Atoka-san, I think we would appreciate some tea."

"Hai, Mikoto-sama." The elderly civilian who owned the kimono shop bowed to the three of them before bustling out of the small fitting room she had shown the future wives of the heads of two clans into. Probably very grateful for the excuse to leave the three gossiping kunoichi in the room alone, sometimes civilians didn't like listening to ninja talk shop around them.

The assassin kept snickering as she sorted out her clothing. "I hope I don't have to call you Mikoto-sama now. Fugaku-_sama_ and Mikoto-_sama_ just sounds like I'm brown nosing the both of you."

The Uchiha genjutsu mistress just flapped a hand in her direction, nudging the AnBu standard leather under-armor plates closer to the misplaced soldier so she could reassemble herself faster. "Why did you start calling him that? I can sort of recall it was in the academy that you picked up the title."

"Why? Cause he was a snotty little brat when I first met him." Kushina almost choked herself on her laughter with how fast Mikoto's head snapped around to Natsumi so the man's intended wife could glare at the woman mocking her intended husband. The assassin simply shrugged again, making sure she was put together right before facing the two of them and continuing the conversation. "What? He was. Then Minato told him I should've been the Rookie of the Year for our first year there and he lost a lot of his superiority complex against the kunoichi side of the class. Well… some of us. He still hated the fan girls no matter _what_ they did."

If Natsumi hadn't been a part of the generation Fugaku grew up with she wondered if the heir to the Uchihas would have still had that slight disdain for the female shinobi of Konohagakure he had shown when he was younger. With her little mental stumbling block not too long ago she had been trying to find where and how she had affected the people around her, and Fugaku _had_ been more than a little cold to her in the beginning when they met in the early days of her academy years. But that had changed not too long after to be more like wary respect when he learned she had been mentoring Minato's taijutsu development and exactly how good she had been before the rest of them caught up enough to her mental age to understand themselves.

Honestly though, if she was the cause of _that_ she had no problems accepting the blame.

"Then it turned into a way of teasing him about his lofty noble clan and young age… and to remind him about the fan girls he used to _cringe_ from."

Rolling her eyes at the next Lady of the Nara clan and her dreadful sense of humor, Mikoto opened her mouth to make some comment but froze still before saying anything.

Alerted to something being wrong, both Natsumi and Kushina grabbed the few weapons they had previously decided were enough for a shopping trip inside of Konoha and waited for the most chakra sensitive of the three of them to tell them what had caught her attention.

The Uchiha genjutsu mistress turned to the door just as a member of the Genin Corps all but tripped inside with the fluttering owner of the kimono shop behind him. "Mesuji-san! Shikaku-sama's in the hospital."

The assassin didn't wait for anymore, she bolted out the open window.

Kushina rounded on the messenger nin. "Details."

"The team he was on returned from their mission, kunoichi-san. Without the team leader and the remainder of the team had to be transported straight to the hospital the moment the gate guards caught sight of them."

Mikoto had already sorted away the silks they had been working on by the time the jinchuuriki turned to her with a pale face. "Atoka-san, we will have to come back to try this again and have the tea later. My apologies."

"Oh! No, it is alright. We will save this all here for you to return." The still pale matron bowed to the remaining two kunoichi customers. "Take my well-wishes for Shikaku-sama's health to Natsumi-sama, Mikoto-sama."

The future Lady of the Uchiha clan nodded once firmly in thanks and acknowledgement, leading herself and the red head out of the fitting room to head after their missing friend to the hospital.

(ooo000ooo)

Natsumi might not have the fine chakra senses of Minato, the moment he wanted them, or Mikoto's uncanny accuracy, who could pinpoint someone's position even when they were suppressing their chakra nearly a mile away, but she had her own ways of tracking down the closest to her that was similar. She figured out early on in her kunoichi career that sensing other shinobi through her chakra was too disorientating for her to do, just simply too different from what she had known for her to accept it as accurate over her usual five senses. It made the orientation period after attempting the chakra sensing too long for mission use and her too inaccurate as well as too slow to make a good sensor, so she would never be known for her senses like her kouhai or one of her best kunoichi friends.

But she found that she could tease out the feel of another's chakra in her usual senses if she knew it well enough to follow in emergencies, without having to concentrate solely on the feelings of the chakra around her and pinpointing them specifically as human and ninja or not. It was something Sakumo had tried to help her develop between the rare and rarer AnBu missions he still took after Kakashi had been born, though he wasn't at all impressed over her limited range with it unless she knew the target well and the skill had been only occasionally used to check their surroundings for eavesdroppers from time to time.

It may not be all that accurate to pick up the exact locations of everyone around or judge how much of a threat they might be by how much the chakra was controlled, and definitely something Natsumi couldn't use on missions unless she was tracking down her well known teammates or sensing for unseen watchers within a very limited range, but it got her close enough for the job she used it for inside the village. Usually locating the unfortunate soul she wanted to poke at in that moment.

And she knew Shikaku's and Inoichi's chakra almost as well as she knew Minato's and Kushina's.

That same skewed sense that would never be useful in her missions lead her faithfully through the hospital, past a number of alarmed medics and nurses up to the third floor where she could feel both Shikaku's dark silky and Inoichi's wet earth sensation, with Minato's icy windburn not too far behind with Tsunade's itchy salve sense. Her heart thumped in fear, knowing from the limited experience she had with this kind of sensing that her kouhai was only icy when he was pissed and the medical specializing sannin only itchy when she had been healing. As she got closer she could also pick up Chouza's ginger tang from the recovery room her old genin teammate and her intended were in.

Minato had to throw out an arm to catch her and keep her from barreling into both him and the Slug Princess. "Shikaku's alright, Natsumi, and Inoichi's just chakra exhausted. It's Chouza, though. He used two of the three Akimichi food pills and they only _just_ stabilized his metabolism."

"You can visit, little shadow, but do so quietly." Tsunade added, jerking her thumb to the closed door behind her. "Kami help you if you wake the Akimichi because I _won't_ be nice."

Natsumi slipped past the two of them and let herself in as silently as she could. Shikaku had collapsed on one of the visitor's chairs, on the opposite wall from where the hospital beds that contained his teammates. He only stirred when the assassin brushed her sword calloused fingers under the two livid scars carved into the side of his face.

The young man cracked the eye open to check who it was touching him, then swept the small woman into his lap so she could hold onto him and not just hover uncertainly over him. "Ambush, Natsu. It's not as bad as it looks, just an anticoagulant that must have coated the katana that scratched me."

"This is a bit more than a _scratch_, Shika." She had known he ended up with the two arching scars on the left side of his face, but not how he got them. Seeing them only just healed was twisting her guts into knots and making her heart hammer. Natsumi shifted only enough to swing her legs over his hips so she could see the damage better. "I'm going to hunt down the ass that did this and rip out his _spine_."

Shikaku huffed out a hollow laugh as he set his hands on her thighs. "I got _her_. Not much left for you to hunt."

The assassin scowled, still upset at the sight of his scars. "Leave me something to do, please. I would like to feel useful somehow if I can't help."

"I think you help just fine." The Nara heir told her as he pressed on her back to get her to lay against his chest.

She went with an exasperated huff, stretching out her arms to circle them behind his neck. "We're staying until someone wakes up, right?"

He wrapped his arms around her lower back. "Yeah."

(ooo000ooo)

Inoichi finally stirred once the moon hid itself behind the first rays of the sun peaking over the rim of the walls surrounding the village.

"Awake?"

The blond mind walker cracked one lavender, pupil less eye open, blearily taking in the position of the low but familiar voice that called him out. It took him a few moments to realize exactly what he was looking at. "Even here? Is there going to be anywhere safe from the two of you?"

"Shush. I finally convinced him to sleep a little." Natsumi gave him an irritated and tired glare, tightening her grip on the insensible Nara that she was lying on top of. "How are you feeling, besides the chakra exhaustion?"

Shutting his eye, the Yamanaka grimaced at the vertigo sensation that was making it hard for him to concentrate on anything and sorted out his last few memories. "Like shit. What happened?"

"Long story or the shorter version? Cause, I don't know the long story and I'm not waking Shikaku just to hear how much of a fuck up your last mission was."

Inoichi huffed out a hollow laugh, pulling another face at how much that had hurt his ribs to do. "Short then."

"Your team leader's missing, presumed dead unless the Hunter-nin teams come back with a different report. He didn't return with you three and Shika said he stayed behind to give him enough time to escape with you two." The assassin laid her head back down, keeping one eye on the blond like she had to promise her intended before he would let himself pass out. "Chouza's fine now, but he used two of the three Akimichi food pills and he's practically as thin as I was back after AnBu."

The muscles of his jaw clenched and the bedridden blond opened up his eyes to stare at the ceiling. "Fuck."

"Mmm, don't think Shikaku would appreciate that."

Inoichi's mouth twitched. "Nice to know some things never change."

"I think I might give a few people heart attacks if I started being serious."

"True." The blond looked around, carefully since moving his head was making it spin, and located the covered form of the Akimichi heir. "Ah… _hell_."

Natsumi hadn't lied or even bothered to cover up the truth, Chouza was nearly as thin as she had been after nearly starving herself just to keep up with her old AnBu squad. On an Akimichi's frame her once stick thin look was nearly skeletal seeming for the broad and tall frames of the body size jutsu clan members.

"Before you ask, Tsunade-sama said he'd be fine with a little more rest and a lot of food. In a few months we won't ever be able to tell he got this bad."

Inoichi just grimaced again while keeping his eyes on the boney frame of his last teammate. "That doesn't really help, Natsumi."

"I know." The misplaced soldier huffed a hollow, painful laugh. "Trust me, I know."

\V/

The day Chouza woke up for the first time after being carried into to the Konoha hospital the nurses noted that the Akimichi heir's friends, who ranged from the Nara heir to the head of the Hyuuga clan to a number of other shinobi of some note, snuck or talked their way into the recovery room to seemingly camp out for the day with a number of soup and stew containers.

"You've always had the greatest timing, Chouza." Natsumi joked as she seated herself on the foot of the way too skinny Akimichi's hospital bed. "How the hell that turned into waking up just in time for us all to be free to come and visit you I have no idea."

Chouza just shrugged with a smirk, already digging into the food the assassin had gotten Tsunade to approve to bring to him. It was all soups and broths for the moment, but if the tokubetsu jounin could keep up with his metabolism without needing the medication developed by the Slug Princess for insensible Akimichis he would graduate to soft foods next and his preferred hard foods not too long after that.

"I seriously want to know who taught you to cook, Natsumi." Kushina set the next crock of soup the assassin had spent nearly three days making in preparation for her intended's teammate waking. "I mean, I know you've got the experience for being this good but I haven't even _seen_ half of these before."

"I've learned them here and there, some when I was a civilian and a lot more when I was a soldier way back when. That's French onion soup." Pointing at the pot that she had abducted from the Hyuuga kitchens when Shikaku's had ran out of containers, Natsumi grinned at the deadpan expression on Hizashi's face as he set that one down next to the crock the jinchuuriki had transported in. "And that is split pea. Never really liked that one, to be honest."

Shikaku raised an eyebrow at the fan stamped on the crock he was holding. "And the Uchiha's? Who else did you raid for bowls last night?"

"I'm pleading the fifth."

"What?"

"I know that one." Minato rolled his eyes as he slipped passed Hiashi on his way out, holding the container he was bringing in over his head so it didn't knock into anyone and spill. "It means she's going to refrain from commenting because answering would incriminate herself."

Kushina smirked, taking a break near the window since she had started transporting the soups and stews at the same time as the assassin had. "I like it."

Chouza had been sidetracked from his eating at the sight of the barely healed over scars carved into his teammate's face. The AnBu snapped her fingers in front of his face when she noticed his distraction. "Eat, before I force feed you. I'd bet I would be the first to do it in Konoha's history, too."

"But-"

"Chouza, you're the one everyone was worried about. Superficial scars and chakra exhaustion do not compare to your almost skeleton thin frame. _Eat_."

The Akimichi heir meekly went back to spooning up the soup he was eating under the stern stare of the assassin.

"I do love your ability to mother the men we all know, Natsumi." Mikoto smiled as she sidestepped past Hizashi bringing in yet another suspicious looking container. "And steal just about anything not nailed down at the same time."

"Shush you. It's not mothering, it's ordering."

"Isn't this Biwako's bowl?"

"Yet again, pleading the fifth." Natsumi sniffed in the Uchiha kunoichi's direction. "… actually she found me in the kitchen and let me have those ones for a few days."

"Well, nice to know someone can catch you when you feel like being sneaky." Minato deadpanned as he picked his way through the soups and stews his sempai had made. "What is this one?"

"The stew left over from a pot roast I made last night. That one is the last one Chouza's allowed to have." Smiling evilly at the hopeful look the Akimichi pinned her with, the assassin switched the empty bowl with the one of French onion. "_Last_ Chouza."

"What did Tsunade-sama say about these?" Restacking some of the containers so they wouldn't tip over and spill, Inoichi carefully placed the two crocks he had on the stacks they had brought in already. "I know more than half of what you made are not local recipes, or possibly not found anywhere around the world."

"I don't think Tsunade-sama knows I can actually cook. She might just have assumed that I _can't_ cook and threw some things in a pot for most of these. I'm pretty sure she also tested all of these for food poisoning too."

Chouza choked on his mouthful of soup.

\V/

A runaway silver speeding bullet hit her the moment Natsumi let herself into the Hatake clan compound's outer gates.

"Natsu-_nee!_"

"Hey, chibi-chan." The assassin ruffled the three year old's fluffy hair fondly. "What's kicking?"

"I'm not kicking." Kakashi looked adorably confused as he tried to understand the weird things that came out of his sister figure's mouth on occasion. "And I'm a _boy_."

Natsumi pried the young child's arms off her thigh and pulled him up to sit on her hip. "Are you sure about that?"

"About the kicking or the boy part?"

"Stop trying to confuse my son, neko-chan." Sakumo's voice carried over to the two of them, the man himself sitting at the dinner table writing out yet another report for Intelligence to file away for other missions near the location he was reporting on.

He was probably working on follow up report for the same mission that killed him in another life, adding in information that he had either forgotten to include the first time or only just now found out had been important in some way. It was standard practice for cell leaders and AnBu captains to submit another report after the usual mission reports for the whole team or squad, it was more often known as the intelligence report and covered the ungodly amount of minor details about other villages and towns as well as the rumors each ninja heard while on mission and small facts about the mission or region you hadn't included in the mission report for whatever reason. That report wasn't due nearly right after returning to the village like the mission report, but it was considered polite to turn it in anywhere from three to six months after a mission taking you out of Fire Country.

The assassin's lips twisted downward as she eyed the paperwork in her old AnBu captain's hands. If there had ever been a reason to hate the inevitable piles of never ending forms and written reports that came with being a part of any military outfit, the current favorite of hers was that the older looking silver haired man had almost committed suicide on behalf of a badly botched mission that hadn't succeeded anyways. The clan he had gone to deliver a missive to refuse by letter, one taken to Konoha by an elderly member of the clan who hadn't survived much beyond delivery. It had been on hell of a slap to the face, to realize the issue had been a complete nonissue other than the whole getting caught thing because the clan in Mist would have refused the help anyways.

"I… need to ask you and Eri-san a question, taicho."

The hesitation in his old apprentice's normally calm and even, or dry and sarcastic, voice drew the older man's attention like a lodestone. He paused in writing, holding the brush off to the side and gave the AnBu assassin called Panther his full attention. "Eri's in the garden. Kakashi-kun, go fetch your kaa-chan."

Natsumi fidgeted under the steady and inquiring gaze of her old AnBu captain after she set the boy down and the hyper child ran off to find his mother. "So... how are you?"

"Fine, something you know because you had dinner with us yesterday." Sakumo set his brush down, a faint smirk tugging his lips. "This wouldn't have anything to do with Jiraiya being out of the village and not expected to be back for a few more months and a certain someone's wedding in a week, would it?"

The misplaced soldier hesitated, frowning. "You're an evil, evil man, taicho."

He had the gall to laugh at her and was still snickering when Eri wandered in, half listening to her son explain how great it would be if Natsu-nee stayed for dinner and showed him a few ninja things out in the yard even if he was in trouble for walking up a wall and leaving dirty footprints all over the ceiling before shocking poor kaa-chan out of a year of her life.

The civilian woman looked between the young woman that had saved her life once and the husband that had taught her much of how to do it. "Is there something wrong, Natsumi-chan?"

Shooting an exasperated look at the sliver haired man snickering with amusement at her, the assassin turned and greeted the terrific woman who married the lump of unhelpful male her taicho was being. "I've got a question... more like request, really. Jiraiya-sensei's not expected to make it back in time for my wedding, and I need someone to stand in as the father... and mother of the bride. I was wondering if the two of you would do it for me."

Eri smiled softly at the uncomfortable kunoichi. "I would love to stand in as your okaa-san, Natsumi-chan. And Sakumo, as soon as he behaves, would love to stand in as your otou-sama as well."

The older of the two silver haired males in the room abruptly stopped laughing, peering suspiciously at his wife. "What does that mean?"

"It means stop laughing at your poor, hardworking, and _babysitting_ old apprentice before I exile you to the couch." The civilian woman turned to beam at him too, but she had an evil smirk on her face instead of the sweet smile the assassin had been gifted with.

Natsumi's lips twitched, trying and failing to stop the answering smirk from crossing her face. Yet again, Eri was _awesome_.

Sakumo muttered a few thing to himself that he was lucky his wife didn't catch, a few of the words Natsumi could pick up involved 'damn', 'running', 'women', and 'life', and not necessarily in that order. The only reason the civilian didn't catch it with how close she was standing to her husband was because Kakashi became curious over where his Natsu-nee's parents were if she wasn't really his sister but was asking for them to be and Eri was diverted enough in explaining the concept of death, being an orphan shinobi and the legalities of that, as well as wedding traditions to a three year old genius not to hear anything else.

The assassin gave her old AnBu captain a salute on her way out the door, grinning the whole time. Life had been disrupted, her work here was done.

\V/

"How are the three of you doing?" Natsumi asked the next day, taking a seat next to Shikaku. Inoichi didn't even bother to look up at her and even the still too thin Chouza had stopped eating, and from the look of the chip bag half full in front of him not too long ago either.

Her intended shot her a sideways look. "What are you doing here?"

"This is your normal training grounds. You three were usually here with your team leader for training for the last few years." The assassin ignored the automatic wince from all three men sitting in the training field. "You know, I don't think I know his name."

"His name was Taka." She was rather impressed her intended husband actually managed to keep much of the bite out of his tone, trying not to snap at her for poking at something that still had to be sore even weeks after their team leader's death. "Why are you asking, Natsumi?"

"Grief counseling." Inoichi answered before the assassin could, recognizing what she was doing from his own training with his clan. "Do you really think that will help?"

"Well… I spent eight years without any and I nearly went off the deep end before you all finally got me some." Natsumi pointed out dryly. "Admittedly I needed the counseling because I had nine deaths to come to terms with and I was stuck on denial for a good few _years_… so what do you think I think? Humor me, boys."

The Yamanaka heir knocked his head back against the tree he had been hunched under. "Revenge is sweet?"

"Something like that. And if you forced me through all that, including the parts I really didn't want to deal with like the post-traumatic stress disorder and my own death, the least you can do is tell me a little about Taka."

Inoichi laughed weakly, covering his face with one hand. "Now I feel like an ass if this was how you felt."

The assassin huffed, shifting around for a more comfortable position for a collection of bruises on her thigh from a sparring accident two days ago. "Ignore that, it'll fade with time."

"She's got a point." Shikaku laced his fingers together behind his neck with a grimace. "We did all but tie her down for her therapy."

"Tie down? You froze me in place after paralyzing me. So that… and I really do want to know about the man. If you three respected him this much he had to be a damn good shinobi."

Natsumi listened as the three of them shared some of what they knew of their KIA cell leader. Of what the man had done in certain situations, the fact he hadn't liked the Nara's control over shadows for the first few weeks they had been assigned together, how he adjusted to it, what they did to celebrate the man's promotion, and the varied little details they had known of the KIA jounin Taka Lin.

\V/

Minato stared at the scarred man, scowling. "I swear to kami, if you're thinking of leaving the closest thing I have to a _sister_ at the _altar_ on her wedding day… _I will kill you_."

"What? _No!_ I don't plan on leaving Natsumi at the altar!" Shikaku lost a few shades of color in his scarred face, looking a little queasy at exactly how icy the blue eyes of the blond's had become from how he had interpreted his comment.

"Shika's just panicking." Inoichi snickered from the other side of the soon to be married, or dead, man. "Even genius are allowed to panic on their wedding day, Minato. Don't kill him for it."

The crunching noises stopped and Chouza, well on his way to recovering from the metabolism unbalance caused by his clan's high leveled jutsus and taking two of three food pills his clan developed but still with an appearance almost too thin for an Akimichi's bone structure, looked over at the three of them curiously. "Did Natsumi panic?" He was dressed and ready, just waiting on them to get themselves together.

"Well, I can't speak about right now. But I do know she's got a few worries of her own."

The blond fuuinjutsu user and the shadow master both looked over to the mind walker and spoke at the same time. "She does?"

Wrapping the obi around his waist, Inoichi tied the formal kimono he was wearing to the ceremony shut. "She's… what age did she say she was when talking to you, Minato? Nearly forty five? She's an almost forty five year old woman in the body of a seventeen year old, marring a seventeen year old man. Two of the few words I managed to pry out of her yesterday were 'cradle' and 'snatcher'."

Shikaku blinked a few times, working out that logic in his head. "So what, does she want an older man?"

"Asked her about that too, she muttered 'cougar' just loud enough for me to hear."

Chouza snickered. "Sounds like Natsumi."

Minato pulled a face. "I don't think I really wanted to know that…"

Inoichi kept Shikaku from asking another stupid question that would get his head almost bitten off again by his bride's brother in all but blood by continuing with what he had gotten out of the AnBu assassin the day before. "She also stated she would've settled for a civilian idiot that wouldn't know what she has done for most of her life if Shikaku hadn't talked to her about marriage, and this was considerably better than what she had figured she'd end up with if she ever got around to desperately wanting a family of her own."

The mind walker's fellow blond now looked irritated at the bent the assassin's mind had taken her in assuming her probable married life.

Shikaku, on the other hand, looked more relieved now than when the fuuinjutsu user stopped glaring at him. "So, she does want to marry me?"

Snorting, Minato gave the newly confirmed Nara clan head a deadpan stare. "She almost flat out freaked when she was told you were in the hospital, Shikaku. Kushina told me she didn't even wait for the full report before bolting for your side during the first fitting for her wedding kimono. I had to keep her from running _into_ Tsunade-sama on her way to make sure you all _were_ okay."

"… oh."

The blond seal user shook his head at the shadow master. "You know, Natsumi calls me her idiot in polite conversation. I think that may have to change to 'idiots' so she can include you too."

(ooo000ooo)

Kushina, finished with braiding the long hair so it could be put up in a few minutes, took a seat next to the fully dressed bride carefully applying the makeup she couldn't talk her way out of. "Excited?"

"Panicking." Natsumi countered flatly, still staring at herself in the vanity mirror with the lip brush suspended a full inch from where she was supposed to be painting with it.

Hugging the shorter woman carefully so she wouldn't muse anything that would need to be fixed in a hurry, the red head smiled up at the staring assassin. "You'll be fine. You say a few words, follow Shikaku around, and it'll all be over. You'll be Nara Natsumi this time tomorrow."

The AnBu gave her a slightly wide eyed look. "I don't think that's helping, hime."

"How about thinking of the wedding night?"

Natsumi blinked a few times, left side of her lips twitching upwards. "Maybe."

Kushina dissolved into giggles, burrowing into the misplaced soldier's silk clad side. "You really are a pervert."

"Well… yeah." Finally getting around to the reason she was holding the makeup up in the first place, Natsumi smeared the red color over her lips. "What was your first clue?"

"Mine was what you said to me and Shibi on mission!" Tsume barked from where she was putting herself together, ignoring the fact her kimono was gaping open enough to show a fair bit of chest for the moment as she carefully pulled up her stockings to keep her long and sharp nails from ripping holes in it.

Mikoto sniffed haughtily, trying to hide her smirk, and adjusted her Uchiha crest stamped fan tucked into her obi. "There was that one time you said to Shikaku that he made a good pillow and every girl needed a pillow like him in their bed… or was it life?"

The alpha of the Inuzuka clan turned around with a fanged grin and a laugh once she was done with adjusting herself so she wasn't falling out of the kimono. "She did? Wow, talk about predicting the future."

Throwing an irritable look at the two of them gossiping behind her, Natsumi finally stopped obsessively checking her small arsenal of sharp and pointy things with her off hand and set the makeup Eri had lent her for the occasion off to the side. "I'm ignoring you both. I never should have introduced you two if this is how you intend to act."

The next Lady of the Uchihas smiled prettily at the seated bride glaring at her through a mirror's reflection and turned to the alpha of the Inuzukas. "Would you like to get some tea sometime and hear all about what Natsumi thought was appropriate to tell a few people to their faces and the offhand comments she's made over the years I've known her for?"

"I would be delighted." Tsume answered just as formally, trying and failing to fight off the wicked grin inching across her face.

"Shut up you two."

Kushina smiled softly at Natsumi's reflection, still leaning against the now marginally calmer assassin. "Feel better about this yet?"

"… yeah."

(ooo000ooo)

Eri beamed at Natsumi as the bride and her handmaidens came out of the dressing room, clasping her hands just beneath her chin. "You look _lovely_, Natsumi-chan."

Sakumo almost reached a hand over to muse up the kunoichi's braided and tied up hair, only deterred by the glare his wife dropped her smile for just to warn him off. "Err… you do look nice, neko-chan."

The assassin couldn't keep the lopsided grin from pulling one side of her painted mouth up. Eri was still her favorite woman in this life, just over Senju Tsunade for what she could make her old kenjutsu master and AnBu captain do with just a look. "Thanks."

"We should get this started before Kakashi-kun decided to try out his chakra control on the walls again." Commented her old AnBu captain, rubbing the back of his silver head sheepishly.

"Yeah… I think it's a bit too late for that, Hatake-sama." Mikoto interjected softly, tilting her head to find out exactly where the youngest Hatake was currently. "I feel him a few feet up the north wall in there."

The mother of the child in question pinched the bridge of her nose. "My apologies. I'm going to go get him down, you two start this already."

Both kenjutsu users saluted her at the same time, giving the respect a ninja normally gave their kage. "Yes ma'am."

(ooo000ooo)

"Stop worrying."

"I'm not worrying, I'm… concerned."

Shikaku huffed at her, exasperated. "Well then, stop being _concerned_. I'm a little afraid your kouhai is going to kill me if he starts thinking you didn't want to do this."

"Minato won't kill you." Patting absently at the tan arm wrapped around her waist, Natsumi peered around the people gathered at the wedding reception to where her favorite blond was standing with a very pleased Kushina near the bar. "I think."

"Confidence inspiring, dear." Her newly wedded husband drawled wryly into her ear, causing the assassin to snicker. "What is it that's concerning you? It has to be something good, I've never seen you this uncertain about anything before."

"You weren't there for my chakra control lessons, so of course you haven't." Hesitating only a moment more, and encouraged by the squeeze of the shadow master's arm, the misplace soldier turned her head to look him in the eyes. "Don't laugh."

Shikaku raise an eyebrow at her.

"I don't know how to be a wife." Natsumi narrowed her eyes at the man's slowly growing amused smirk, driving her elbow back into his gut with an annoyed huff. "I said _don't laugh_."

"A laugh is verbalized, Natsu. Therefore, I'm not laughing."

"I'm afraid I'm going to have to agree with your husband, Natsumi-chan." Both newly wedded Naras turned their heads to the familiar voice and scrambled to salute the Hokage. The shinobi world's 'Professor' waved them down. "I just came to offer my congratulations."

Natsumi blushed darkly under the makeup she had been forced into wearing, embarrassed that the man had heard her concerns over what kind of spouse she would make. "Thank you, Hokage-sama."

"Hiruzen, please. You two certainly have earned it." The Sandaime corrected, smiling calmly at the two newlyweds that tried getting some time to themselves by situating themselves in an out of the way corner and taking the assassin's hand to pat it comfortingly. "Don't worry so much dear, every shinobi that married started with the same worries you have."

"Even you, Hiruzen-sama?" Shikaku asked for the both of them, since his wife was too self-conscious to ask herself.

"Even me. Although, my concerns were more too how I would protect Biwako and any children she would give me from the enemies my predecessors and I have gained over the years." The head of the Sarutobi clan informed them dryly. "Then AnBu decided to solve that problem for me. I think even you have taken turns on the Hokage's home guard shift, Natsumi-chan."

"I have, Hokage-sama." Clearing her throat, the assassin finally raised her head to look at the Fire Shadow. "Thank you."

"I do hope you are not thanking me for guard duty, I might have to start asking for the Yamanaka clan to inspect the mental health of all active AnBu agents as well as the more visible ranks."

Natsumi laughed weakly. "That'd make Inoichi happy."

Hiruzen hummed, a faint smirk appearing on his weather beaten face. "Would annoy a fair few AnBu too, I'd imagine. Feeling better yet, Natsumi-chan?"

"Yes, Hiruzen-sama."

Patting the hand he was holding one last time, the Kage of Konoha folded her hand into her husbands. "You two will be fine. Just remember assumptions are not always a good thing in a relationship."

Shikaku set his chin on his wife's shoulder as they watched the middle aged kage walk away. "Hard to have doubts when the Hokage himself has faith in you."

"That's… putting it mildly." Taking one last moment to settle herself, as it probably wasn't the last time the Hokage would sneak up on her and she dearly wanted to know _how_ he did it even to _Hyuugas_, the assassin led her husband out of the niche he had found for them by the hand. "Come on, let's go rescue Shibi from Tsume. She got into the sake already and I think he's losing patience with her."

"How can you _tell?_"

\V/

The week of paid vacation time Sarutobi Hiruzen gifted to the newly married Naras went by without a sighting of the newlyweds… and anytime the two missing Naras were mentioned Minato turned a bit pale and Kushina broke down into giggles.

The newly named _Nara_ Natsumi's lips twitched as Tsume blithely told her exactly what had happened and who did what when she had been on 'vacation'. "This is why I keep you around."

"Glad to know you think I'm useful." The wild woman sniffed, fanged grin on her face the whole time. "I also had a very nice little gossip party with a certain Uchiha while you were playing housewife. Wanna hear what I learned?"

"Since I was the one to do most of it… oh wait, I did _all_ of it and only had occasional help now and again, I'm pretty sure I can guess."

"The guts you've got to have to say some of that to those people… man, if you weren't married I'd ask you to run away with me." Tsume whistled lowly, smirking as Kuromaru twitched from the doorway and lift his head to look over at them.

"I don't think Shikaku would appreciate that." Mikoto interjected serenely, doing a fair bit of her own smirking as she poured another round of tea for all the women in the Nara's tea room.

Kushina was too busy trying not to suffocate herself by laughing too hard and trying to keep it quiet to provide much for the conversation taking place in the misplaced soldier's new home.

Shikai had gifted Shikaku's old childhood home to the newlyweds, moving himself and Shikaku's mother to a smaller one on the edge of the forests the Nara deer herds lived in. The new clan head of the Naras had eventually gotten around to telling his wife that it was traditional, every time the clan head's son took over the position the house exchanged hands to make way for the next generation.

Natsumi smiled blandly at her three female friends. "I have no idea what you could mean."

"Please," The red head gasped out between giggles, pointing one finger in the assassin's face, "we all saw the smirk on Shikaku's face when the two of you finally surfaced."

"How badly did Minato pale?"

"Oh, he twitched. Kinda like he does when someone manages to stab him on mission." The Uchiha genjutsu mistress told the kenjutsu using assassin. "I don't think he could look your husband in the eyes at all before they left on their mission."

"My poor, poor kouhai." The new Lady of the Nara clan couldn't stop the wicked smirk from inching across her face. "He'll adjust, as soon as Kushina finally puts him out of his misery and marries _him_… or at least takes him to bed."

The named Uzumaki cut off her laughter with a squeak, flushing bright red.

\V/

Even if they were newly married, Natsumi was still called out on mission not four days after her husband and his team plus one had left on their own.

"What's up with this, taicho? I've been getting more assassinations the last few months than I've had all last year." Picking up the black streaked cat mask and fitting it over her face, Panther turned to the fully dressed Wolf in the AnBu staging locker room, masked face cocked to the side.

"Hmm… not too sure, neko-chan." The occasional captain of her AnBu squad got a spare katana to replace the one he had given her out of the locker used for temporary weaponry storage. "But I know Iwa's getting restless and Kumo's been testing the boarders more than they had been."

Natsumi nibbled her bottom lip under her mask as she situated the bland and ordinary steel blade katana on her back. She had completely blown the original start of the Third Great Shinobi War out of the water by keeping her taicho skilled enough, and not slightly desperate to raise a son on his own, to complete the mission that had formerly doomed him, but she also knew there would be _something_ that would happen to kick off another war. Like what she had told Kushina a long time ago, they hadn't proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that anyone or anything going up against Konohagakure would not survive the attempt yet.

Now the only thing she wanted was to make sure Konoha wasn't at fault for _starting_ the next war, because that would destroy a large part of her authority over the other shinobi villages.

"So what's the mission?"

Wolf swung his head to motion Jackal and Horse over to where he and Panther were standing. "We have an assassination of a nobleman in the Land of Iron. The target is going to be fairly well guarded, and the contract calls for a public execution, so we'll need iron tight alibies to both be in the country and to leave it during the confusion of the noble's death. Any questions?"

Silence was all that answered him.

"Move out."

\V/

Natsumi came home after two weeks on mission tired and slight achy, and she plastered herself to her husband's back to peer over his shoulders in order to see what he was working on in the study. "More tactics?"

"Sarutobi-sama's been asking me to help the current Jounin Commander with working out the initial tactics of the missions going through the jounin assignment hall."

The assassin smiled tiredly, listening to the rumble of Shikaku's voice through his back. "Well, that sounds fun."

"It's something to work on." The tanned shinobi craned his head around to try and look at her, finally giving up and hauling the shorter woman into his lap. "Natsumi?"

"Mmm," not at all against the new position, the kunoichi simply settled herself in a better position for a nap, "didn't want to spend the night at AnBu headquarters. Tired."

"Tou-chan asked we go have dinner with him and kaa-chan when you got home. Mind?"

"Wake me before we've got to be there."

(ooo000ooo)

"Rock and Cloud are arguing?"

"Yeah, surprised me too." Natsumi threw a lopsided grin at her husband's father. "But that's the general take of the rumors going around up near Iron Country, Iwa's accusing Kumo of substandard assistance and Cloud's countering with a few pointed suggestions of Rock's own failure to uphold their promises."

The old head of the Nara clan hummed lowly as he thought that over. "Have you heard anything from Kiri?"

"No one's heard anything from Mist, old man." Shikaku told him dryly. "There's nothing coming out from Ame either, but that's more normal than Kiri suddenly going quiet."

Letting the two born Naras argue good-naturedly about what was and what wasn't normal for the Village Hidden in the Mist, the assassin stared into her tea as she swirled it around. Aikido took the opportunity to inform her of the news she had missed by being out of the village, from the few jounin promotions to the news of a confusingly large number of newborn babies that seemed to have gone missing a few towns over to the currently much gossiped about rumors going around the Hidden Village.

With Iwa's failure to cause the death or at least damage the head of the Hatake clan's reputation and Kumo's failure to snatch the Uzumaki kunoichi out of Konohagakure, it was almost too simple seeming for the two of them to turn on each other over the usual squabbles of who was more wrong. Suna was, of course, completely content in Konoha's vouch of assistance and with Kiri suddenly going completely dark like it had threatened to do since the end of the last war, there seemed to be little to start another war over with the Village Hidden in the Leaves.

It was starting to look like there wouldn't be another war just yet, not with the reason Sakumo once committed suicide over not happening here. Why would the other three countries try to chip away at Konoha's superiority without even a halfway truthful reason to hide behind to do said chipping?

Natsumi was fine with the war being staved off for a little while, just… she didn't want what had happened to Kakashi and Sakumo in another life to happen to another family. She would be a lot happier if the bullshit excuse the other countries were going to come up with had already happened and she didn't have to sit around and not know what they were going to pull to sucker everyone into another continent spanning war.

"Natsu?" Shikaku prompted when he noticed his wife's inattention.

The misplaced soldier gave an apologetic smile at the two males she was having tea with and her mother-in-law, who was peering at her worriedly. "Sorry, tired. I'm thinking we're missing something, though. It just seems too neat of an excuse to drop our guard."

"I'm going have to agree with your little lady, son." The older male told his clan head. "We're going to have to tighten security up, even if these rumors start spreading to our own people."

"But for now," Aikido interjected firmly, eyeing her son's wife even as she poured herself more tea, "you two go on home. Are you sure you're not doing too much, Natsumi?"

"Meh, I need another nap… or some actual sleep, and I'll be fine." Pausing again only to yawn, the assassin set her empty teacup down firmly. "But that sounds good right now."

Inspecting how tired she was and just how much she could hurt him at the moment, her husband cocked his head to the side with a small smirk. "Want me to carry you?"

"I'm not _that_ tired." Natsumi mocked glared at him and got up from the low table. "Shikai-san, Aikido-san. Thank you for having me over."

Shikaku echoed his wife in her verbal polite leave taking, wandering out of his parent's newer home at the edge of the Nara's forest after her once the older couple gave their own polite pleasantries. "Are you sure you don't mind if I go meet up with Inoichi and Chouza?"

"Shika, I'm exhausted." Natsumi gave her husband a lopsided grin over her shoulder. "I really can't see myself doing anything but collapsing in bed. If you have better things to do than sit around the house until you're tired, go do them. It's silly of me to expect you to watch me sleep, since you tend to do that in the morning anyways."

"Troublesome woman."

"And proud of it. If you see Minato tonight tell him I'm still alive, would you?"

The head of the Nara clan rolled his eyes at his Lady, splitting off from her on the main path through the Nara compound on his way to the compound's gates.

Natsumi rubbed at her eyes as she let herself into her home, kicking off the ninja sandals she had to replace before making her way back to the Nara compound after reporting into AnBu HQ and to the Hokage. She had managed to wear the treads off her old pair, and it looked like she would actually have to go out and replace these herself because the pair she had grabbed from the general stores were a size too big for her small feet.

With the intent of maybe getting herself something to nibble on before bed so she wouldn't be starving when she woke up, Natsumi headed to the kitchen… and paused, hand drifting to her few kunai tucked in the wide belt she wore when off-duty.

Someone she didn't know was in the house. The same way she knew where the people she cared for were also let her pick up when an unfamiliar chakra got near her position.

And Natsumi was pretty sure she didn't know anyone whose chakra felt like smooth cut gemstones and another that grated against her like rock grit. It didn't feel like anything Konoha would produce, but it was similar to the feel of Iwagakure ninjas she had picked up on two missions ago… and a Konoha nin wouldn't have a reason to linger in her home without announcing themselves the moment she got in sight of the house.

"Screw the food, I'm more tired." The assassin muttered to herself to cover the pause in her movement, turning on the spot to go up the stairs.

She had her katana in the bedroom, she just hoped Shikaku didn't mind that she was about to get blood all over the upstairs hallway.

Natsumi only got halfway to her sword before the first of the stalkers in her home tried to take her down, the one that felt like rock grit. He attempted to shove the tip of his tanto into her ribs, and the assassin he was targeting only just managed to keep it from going through anything majorly important by twisting around just a few seconds too slow to avoid it entirely. He got one of her few kunai through the throat in return for the deep cut scoring her ribs.

Carefully lowering the heavily bleeding, but not yet dead, attacker to the floor silently, Natsumi hissed out a low, painful breath as she pressed a hand to the sluggishly bleeding wound. She had almost missed the man's approach and paid for it with a solid three inches of slit skin and muscle in between two of her ribs. This had gotten off to a bad start with her walking into the ambush nearly blind, there was still another chakra source in the house she had to deal with, and she hadn't had the chance to make sure that other signal was the only one in there with her.

This was shaping up to be a night even worse than the night before her wedding.

(ooo000ooo)

Shikaku easily sidestepped the slap to the back as he entered the small bar Inoichi had picked out, giving Minato a sideways look of faux disdain. "Sloppy. Natsumi said to tell you she's alive."

The blond grinned at the Nara, saluting him with the small saucer of sake he was holding. "Duly noted. Get the night off from your husbandly duties?"

"She said there wasn't much of a point in making me watch her sleep." The shadow master explained with a shrug as he took a seat next to a much recovered Chouza. "And if I had better things to do that I should go do them."

"You," The Yamanaka heir clapped Shikaku's shoulder after leaning over the Akimichi's back, "have a terrific wife. And you," the mind walker then pointed in the face of his fellow blond, "Natsumi's going to be pissed to learn you've just been playing along with her poking at you."

"Sempai's known I've been playing along, even if she wasn't there to see it, for a long while." Minato protested mildly, slapping Inoichi's hand away from his face. "I haven't had a problem with the jokes she cracks, her _or_ sensei, for about a _year_ now. But you know she's never happy unless _someone_ cringes at what comes out of her mouth, and with me doing it she doesn't go out of her way to find the limits on others that might take offense."

The Yamanaka's mouth hung open as he processed that. "Cheaters, the both of you. I've been just _waiting_ for her to make the wrong comment to someone just too see who jumps down their throat about it."

Shikaku cocked his head to the side and took a moment to think about that. "Well… there's Jiraiya-sama, Tsunade-sama, Sakumo-sama, Minato, me, Fugaku, Hiashi, Hizashi, you, Chouza, Kushina, Tsume, Shibi-san, Mikoto… about most of the clans in Konoha already know about her sense of humor, including the Hokage, her coworkers in AnBu maybe, most if not all the jounin and chuunin in the village that have run missions with her… there are a whole lot of people that already know about it."

"Exactly!"

Minato snorted. "It would have to be either a noble or a civilian to make a complaint, and sempai is scarily well-behaved around those."

"I've seen her around Eri-sama," Chouza mused aloud, snagging the small bowl of pretzels and bringing it closer to him so he wouldn't have to lean over to reach them, "and Kakashi-kun. She is almost _proper_ acting around them."

"_That_ is more of a slight bit of hero worship." The fuuinjutsu user corrected, more than a little tipsy already. "Ever see Eri-sama boss Sakumo-sama around? _That's _why Natsumi is so respectful around her."

"That has some scary implication for my immediate home life."

Laughing at the paling Nara, Minato shook his shaggy blond head. "Naw, she might respect the kind of care it takes to mock one another like that but she doesn't want that for herself or you."

"I know the two of you joke about being siblings a lot, but _how_ do you know that?"

"_Whose_ couch do you think she and Kushina gossiped on before your wedding?" The young man asked archly, pouring himself another saucer of sake. "I've heard more about Natsumi, Kushina, and Mikoto than I really care to repeat. Though there still are a few things I still really don't want to know about-"

Halfway through Minato pouring the liquor a small spotted cat jumped on top of the table the four of them were sitting on. Shikaku, pale already from the conversation topic, blanched white under his tan when he recognized the Leopard as the first of the cubs his wife had taught to hunt. "Kenta?"

"Assassins the lady said. You're needed at the den of deer."

\V/

"I'll be _fine_, dear. I'm just going to go to _sleep_, you said. Little liar."

"Hey, that was the plan until I noticed the home wreckers." Natsumi sniffed, poking listlessly at the plate of hospital food given to her to eat for dinner. "… and I'm really sorry, okay?"

Shikaku heavily sighed, rubbing his scars as he slumped into the visitor chair next to his wife's bed. "I'm setting one of the clan's kunoichi in the house until your back on active duty, just so you know."

"I do _not_ need a watcher."

"Apparently, you _do_. Or did the two assassins from Iwa and the _other two from Kumo_ that just tried to take you head off not tip you off that you might need one or two?"

There wasn't much the assassin could say to that, so she just shoved the tasteless food to one side of her hospital bed's tray table and did some slumping of her own back into her pillows. "How bad off am I?"

The shadow master sighed again, reaching out one long arm and picking up the medical report clipped to the foot of his wife's hospital bed so he could read it off to her. "Clean break of the right femur. Mild blood loss. Chakra _depletion_. _Bad_ break of the right fibula, tearing of the tendons in your right knee, might not be able to walk in a straight line for about _three months_."

The assassin bit her lip hard. Had she been in another life, those injuries would have been permanently crippling for the rest of her life. Thank kami-sama for chakra assisted healing. "Fuck me."

"I would love to, but Tsunade-sama said no high levels of activity until the knee heals completely."

Natsumi weakly snickered. "What about Iwa and Kumo?"

"Hokage-sama's _pissed_ at both of them." Shikaku told her flatly. "Not only did they attack the wife of a clan head whose wedding he had attended himself, but they attacked an AnBu captain in her own home within Konoha and nearly succeeded in taking her head. I didn't know that you had a promotion until he told me."

The dual eyed woman on the hospital bed blinked, surprised. "I didn't know either. Cool, I've been promoted."

The Nara she married rolled his eyes at her. "Yeah well, Fugaku's irritated that someone got through the security checks to try for your pretty little head. So he and Hokage-sama are going through the village's security for the next few weeks until Iwa's ambassador gets back to him with Rock's official stance on why two of their assassins were just killed in the Nara clan compound by the wife of the clan head… and why two of Kumo's assassins were killed with them, one by said wife and another by the clan head himself."

Natsumi keenly felt a possible Helen of Troy incident in the works. It probably hadn't been what Rock and Cloud had been after in trying to make her half a foot shorter than she already was, but with her current position and knowledge of history she was afraid it might go that way.

The assassin was a good friend to a number of clan affiliated people as well as the heirs and heads to three different clans, the Uchihas, the Hyuugas, and the Yamanakas, as well as the wife to another clan's head, and where the Naras and the Yamanakas went the Akimichis went as well. That didn't include her burgeoning friendship with the alpha of the Inuzukas and the Aburames by default, Shibi hadn't yet extracted himself from Tsume's grip and she saw the stoic bug user fairly often with the brash alpha of the Inuzukas. She had also technically been a daughter to the Hatake clan, a ward of the head of the clan for the duration of the last bit of her childhood, a well-known individual to the Sarutobi clan, and a favored guest to the last of the Senjus and known by the two other sannin of the village, one of which she had been the student of. That was all four of the founding noble shinobi clans, the two clans that had produced the Hokages and one of which had _founded_ the Village Hidden in the Leaves and was practically royalty in the village, a number of the older and more respected clans in Konohagakure, and a fair few of the highest ranked ninja in the village that would probably call her a friend.

She was also surprisingly rather popular to the civilians, for a kunoichi wife of a medium sized shinobi clan's head. She hadn't known it before but a few of the people who owned and worked in the stores she shopped at for groceries, presents for her friends, and her other day to day items were rather fond of her for some reason. She had the sneaking suspicion it mostly had to do with Eri, from when she had saved her life and had been nearly terrified that the wife of her taicho wouldn't want anything to do with her after the attack. The woman had been a shopkeeper for a few of the merchants in Konoha before her marriage to one of the popular but nearly extinct clans of the village, and had the connections to ensure there was nothing but good things spread around about the teenaged kunoichi who saved her and her son from being murdered in a dispute between Hidden Villages.

Iwa and Kumo probably hadn't known much beyond her Hatake connection, seeing as she had been the one to foil the assassination attempt on Eri and that was most likely the reason why Iwa targeted her to kill this time around. But since Natsumi was both an assassin and an AnBu agent most if not all of her work was done in the shadows, where rumors were not spread around about other agents because there were rarely any survivors from operations to do the spreading, and only her kenjutsu usage was common knowledge to any and every one that wanted to know what she did for Konoha. That meant there really hadn't been much on her in the rumor mills before she kept her old AnBu captain's wife and son alive for him and there probably hadn't been anymore since then until now. Yeah she was a jounin, but that promotion could have been from anything, like trading favors to higher ranking shinobi to a ninja specialization that wouldn't see much combat work anyways. By the very nature of Natsumi's work for Konohagakure her abilities were not very well known outside of a small circle of friends, superiors, and AnBu coworkers, something that no longer applied to her with the two foiled assassination attempts under her belt telling more about her skills than anything else publicly known about her.

This incident would put her on the radar of any spies and rumor hunters looking to mark out Konoha's more unknown operatives. The fact that she had killed one of two of Iwa's assassins and incapacitated the other before summoning help for her own injuries while also dealing with one of Kumo's was a hot topic of gossip around the village at the moment because her husband and kouhai had all but panicked when Kenta went to fetch them and they had a messy and loud fight with the last Cloud sent assassin right in the front yard of the house. It would also probably have a lot of political repercussions the misplaced soldier was only now feeling out.

"Has that last Iwa assassin I snagged talked any?"

"Inoichi's working on it, and he's not being nice about it either."

Natsumi's lips twitched upwards at the tone of voice her husband had used. She hadn't been nice to the second Iwa assassin she had sensed, already pissed about the deep cut and blood loss she had been dealing with, and the man would probably lose a leg if T&I didn't kill him first. "Why, dear, are you _happy_ about that?"

"Yes." Totally unapologetic, the Nara picked up the apple from the fruit basket Chouza had given the assassin when he had visited earlier and bit into it. "You're the second wife of a clan head that Iwa tried to kill, and this time they had Kumo's help for it. If Minato and I had gotten there even a little later that last assassin could have killed you when you passed out from the blood loss and the chakra depletion."

Being reminded at how close she had come to dying made the dual eyed woman wince and press a hand to the healing scar on the left side of her ribcage. Natsumi was a little afraid of what may happen if she kicked the bucket again, unsure if her mental state would survive another rebirth in a world she hadn't known in either previous lives. That and she was rather attached to this one, thanks. "Sorry…"

"Why are you apologizing?"

_Cause I royally screwed up how your lives were supposed to go, maybe? No wait, I'm going to become one of the major reasons the Third War is fought over. Fun._ "I got blood all over the upstairs hallway."

"It's already washed and clean, don't worry about it."

The bedridden assassin crossed her arms under her chest and scowled out her hospital room's window. "Damn it, Shika. Let me feel guilty, would you?"

Her husband made a show of thinking about it for all of a second before shaking his head and continuing to eat the fruit his teammate had left for his wife. "Umm… no. You didn't ask for them to try and ambush you in our home and make an attempt at your neck, and I am mostly sure there isn't anything you've done recently that could be traced to you by them for the reason why other than keeping Eri-sama alive. And since I'm sure you're not feeling guilty about killing the idiots that tried to kill you, I won't let you feel guilty over nothing… unless there is something you're not telling me."

The hazards of being married to a genius. Natsumi barked out a weak laugh, digging her sore shoulders even farther into the pillows behind her. "Have I told you my little theory yet? The one about the next war?"

Shikaku listened to everything she had once told Kushina, and got a small impromptu history lesson about a world gone by that couldn't stop fighting even if the lines and divides of power had been clearly defined.

"Alright… I can see why _you_ might think you're guilty, cause that is a solid sounding theory to what _may_ happen shortly. But it hasn't happened yet and you didn't go out of your way to provoke either Iwa or Kumo, keeping Eri-sama alive doesn't count because that was what you were supposed to do when foreign nin go after our civilians, therefore _if _a war starts over their inability to stop trying to murder the woman who marry into Konohagakure's shinobi clans it's not just because _you_ needed some help keeping yourself alive."

The misplaced soldier opened her mouth… then shut it, unable to counter that argument without letting on that she knew more than she should. "There was a saying back before, those who failed to learn from history are doomed to repeat it. I can see echoes of my history in the current events here, and have to wonder if we're going down the same road."

"And that is all fine and good, but we don't have that kind of recorded history yet to repeat." Shikaku pointed out dryly to his miserable wife. "You'll drive yourself insane… well, worse than you already are, if you keep looking for similarities between now and then. Not to mention I thought we already dealt with the past you can recall, I distinctly remember you saying it didn't matter a few years ago."

"I don't particularly want to be known for starting a _war_, Shika."

"And you won't be." Holding up the core of the apple to keep her from interrupting, the shadow master continued in a deliberate tone of voice to keep his sometimes scatterbrained significant other focused on him. "No, you won't. Yes you're hospitalized because Iwa and Kumo tried to kill you and that may be _a_ reason Sarutobi-sama decides to no longer be nice about the killers sent into our village, but Eri-sama was another Rock tried to kill. You're not to blame for them making the attempts, all you're to blame for is stopping them. You'll be one of two reasons if _this_ is what the next war is started over. And with all due honesty, I like you and Eri-sama alive."

It was a very twisted kind of logic. On one hand, if she hadn't been here to keep her precious people's important people alive and healthy the war would have started sooner because of Konoha and killed her old AnBu captain. On the other, being here might have started it only a little later than it had occurred in another life and she might just be the reason behind both of her husband's reasons it's occurring.

Natsumi rubbed her face, trying to straighten out her thoughts from where they had gotten twisted around in loops. "My head hurts."

"Yeah well… you frequently make my head hurt. Suffer."

The bedridden assassin laughed weakly. "I shall suffer in silence then."

"I can still hear you."

Natsumi threw one of her hospital standard flat pillows into his face.

\V/

The Hokage and the AnBu General Bear-sama were taking advantage of her recently bedridden condition by forcing her to read through personal files for AnBu, partially on the excuse that she needed to form up her own AnBu squad and some mentioned standing orders to report to them any major issues she noted in the files.

Natsumi thought the two of them were being rather mean about her so called 'accident', the official cover for being almost killed by Iwa and Kumo assassins that nearly nobody that the assassin knew believed for a moment due to the simple fact of the locations of her injuries. A deep cut to the ribcage, two broken bones, a number of smaller cuts and bruises, one prisoner transported to T&I, and three bodies taken out of her house does not an accident make, apparently. Go figure.

Had she ever mentioned she _hated_ paperwork?

The newly promoted AnBu captain slid the file she had been reading over to the other side of her bed, picking up the next one and cracking it open to see who was inside.

She had current, past, and almost ready AnBu agents stacked up like sacks of rice next to her bed while she tried to find three other AnBu that would be able to either support her for assassinations or handle the logistics of getting in and out of other countries for said assassinations. Something she had found to be more difficult than just passing the boarders by unconventional means.

There were possibilities open, she could keep Sakumo's old main squad together and add a new man even if the man who led them before had finally decided to completely retire from AnBu to have more time so he could raise his son and the squad was being disbanded, or pick up the ones or twos out of other squads whose captain had decided that they didn't mind giving up for a new captain. Or she could make up a whole new squad out of the incoming agents. Not really something she wanted to do, but it was an option. Or she could mix it all up and start from a base of an agent or two she already knew and fill in the empty slots with newbies.

At the moment, she was maybe leaning more to keeping Jackal and Horse and then maybe snagging a new field agent from the incoming. Both of them had worked with her before, but they both had also known her before she was a captain and that may add some tension to the mix. Not something you wanted when also breaking in a new member.

So keep Horse? Nix Jackal, the man was as hardcore an AnBu member if there had ever been one and might resent the promotion going to a younger member of the shadow guard he had once helped trained. Horse was another lifelong member of AnBu, but the woman had started out in seduction before a mission gone strange scarred her face and she transferred to the sabotage squads using the medical skills she picked up when in recovery for the botched mission. She was pretty blasé about the command structure she was under as long as the orders didn't get anyone killed or horribly maimed. She wouldn't be keeping Tiger, Lizard, Crow, or Monkey with her own squad for the same reasons, they had already worked with her when she had just been starting out.

Natsumi leafed thought a few more files, discarding the medical support and espionage or assassination specialty ones because those rolls had been already filled. "You know, its bad manners to loom over someone's sickbed, sensei."

The Toad Sage slid over to sit on the foot of the bed, warily eyeing the files his old female student was paging through. "How did you know it was me?"

"Oil. You feel like oil."

Jirayia's eyebrows rose up. "You can feel me? As in a chakra sense?"

"Sort of." Natsumi flapped a free hand in his direction to show he only had it half right. "It's more of an overlay on my usual senses, and I can only use it to recognize those I know well and keep track of them."

"I haven't been back since you apparently developed this, because I know you would've told me about it the last time I was here. How did you know it was me?"

The bedridden assassin finally looked up and grinned at the white haired sannin. "Because the only one Shia-chan down stairs would let through without a major ruckus and would feel like an oil to me is you, sensei. I was halfway convinced you would feel like a hot springs or maybe something perverted when I could finally get your measure."

"Ah, so you do know your husband set watchers on you." Jiraiya rubbed the underside of his jaw with one hand, taking in the brace that was keeping the misplaced soldier's leg straight so it could heal correctly. "I wondered about that."

"Well, it's not like I can defend myself at the moment and Shia-chan's not the only one watching me." Natsumi responded bitterly, gesturing with the file in her left hand to the brace on her right leg. "I can't even get up out of bed on my own for the next few weeks until the bones set in place, so there's an entire AnBu squad hanging around with a full Uchiha MP checkpoint just outside the gates. Can you say overkill?"

The Toad Sage cocked his head to the side at her tone. "You've never had a serious injury before, have you? It could be worse, I once had most of the bones on my left side broken. Took six months before Tsunade-hime would let me go back to active duty."

The assassin pulled a face at him. "I know perfectly well I'm being a little bitch about this, sensei. I just _hate_ being _confined_ and _watched_."

The white haired sannin laughed at her, reaching out a hand and messing the dual eyed woman's loose hair up. "Nice to know your that aware of it, neko-chan. Now, where are the others? I thought with you down they would at least guard your back for you. If that Nara gaki you married skipped out to take a nap while you're injured…"

"Shikaku's on mission right now, and so is Chouza and Inoichi, so you can't go after my husband with a house sized toad, sensei. Minato's got a solo C-rank for his sealing skills out in Suna, Kushina's working on her fuuinjutsu again but I saw her just this morning. Fugaku and Mikoto visited yesterday, Hiashi and Hizashi are going to visit today and let me meet the girl the younger twin is going to marry. Tsume's got clan stuff to deal with, and Shibi won't drag himself out of his compound without the Inuzuka doing said dragging." Having run out of fingers to count down on by the second to last set of friends she had, Natsumi cocked her own head at the man who taught her half of the skills she had as a genin. "Tsunade-sama's not due to check in on me and my leg until next week, taicho and his family came by last week, and now you're here to do said guarding."

Jiraiya sniffed self-importantly. "How do you know I'm going to stick around just to guard your back if you have an entire clan to do it for you now?"

The bedridden assassin laughed at him. "Why are you in the village a few weeks early? You weren't due back until the month after next."

"Alright… I might give you that." The Toad Sage's eyes drifted back down to the braced leg stretched out. "How bad was it?"

Natsumi glanced up at him from the file she had been trying to reread after being distracted, following his gaze back down to her leg and sneering at the broken limb. "A clean and a bad break in the thigh and calf. Wrenched the knee pretty badly too. Other than a few other cuts and bruises, which are mostly healed up now, I did have a case of chakra depletion to deal with right after." And she finally figured out what depletion felt like. Added to the flu and starvation sensation of chakra exhaustion was a bone deep ache all over you couldn't do anything about, and almost no energy to even sit up but just enough to keep you awake. It was horrifically nasty to deal with, and something Natsumi _never_ wanted to feel again. "What's going on, sensei?"

"What do you mean?"

The assassin pulled another face, this time at the older looking man pretending to be innocent. "You had to have heard of this outside of the village, and that means something spooked you bad enough to come back, drop in, and make sure my head was still attached. How bad are the rumors getting? And what the hell was up with the rumors going around Iron Country?"

"Heard about that, huh?" Jiraiya tugged a hand through his unruly hair with a sigh. "They were misleading everyone with their ears to the ground trying to see what was going on within their villages. I think only about half of it was true."

"And my other question?"

The Toad Sage huffed at her stubborn insistence. "Iwa put a bounty on your head. Ten thousand dead, twenty five alive so they can make an example out of you."

Natsumi slammed her head back against the headboard her pillows were stacked against, shutting her eyes for the moment. No wonder she had been promoted, assembling and training a new AnBu squad took at least a half of a year and it would keep her in the village for a good while even after she healed up from the broken bones. Hokage-sama was covering for injuries again, this time it was her turn. "Fucking _perfect_. What else?"

"Beside the small fact you're going to need to avoid the bounty hunters now? Talks with Iwa broke down just after the attempt on your life, Kumo followed them and cut off any communication with us. Hiruzen-sensei is going to send the diplomats back, with a full AnBu squad, to figure out what they are playing at before calling it either way."

The right side of the bedridden assassin's mouth pulled up. "This is just getting better and better."

"It's not your fault, neko-chan."

"I see someone talked to my husband just before he left."

"Maybe. Did manage to make you concerned over his wellbeing for a few seconds, didn't I?" Counting the small lift of the lips as a win, Jiraiya pulled a stack of papers he had bound with two wooden boards and a piece of twine. "I found this here and there, and thought you may know what it is."

Distracted from her worries, Natsumi took it simply out of curiosity and paged through it in favor of her AnBu files. "Why give it to me?"

"I don't recognize the cipher from anything I've ever seen before. I was hoping you could save me a trip to the eggheads."

The assassin blinked, cocking her head to the side as she ran it against every cipher she had ever known but unable to pick apart anything. "I don't recognize it either."

"Damn, that means I do have to deal with Intelligence."

"Poor you, sensei." Natsumi tilted her head to the other side, already distracted with trying to pick out a key to the code. "You could just leave it here and I'll ask Shikaku to look at it when he gets home."

Jiraiya hid a grin with ease, pleased that the younger looking woman had dropped the AnBu files in favor of decoding his so called 'problem'. "I could do that. I knew there was a reason I liked you, neko-chan."

She arched an eyebrow, not even looking up from the puzzling word game in her lap. "It may take a few weeks until he gets back to take said look, you know."

"Knew there would be a catch." The white haired sannin rubbed his jaw before getting up off the Nara's bed, mostly certain her husband would never get the opportunity to take a look at the cipher for him. "Suppose I have a reason to stick around then, don't I?"

(ooo000ooo)

Hyuuga Misaki was… a very impassive seeming woman. She had the dark hair and silver, nearly metallic eyes of any Hyuuga, but something was pinging off her radars as not quite civilian. She hadn't known the Hyuuga clan had civilian members and was currently trying to find a polite way to ask.

Natsumi blinked, floundering for something to say as she looked between the stoic Hyuuga twins and the serene female Hyuuga sitting between them on the couch she had managed to badger Jiraiya into moving into the bedroom for her just a little while earlier. "Uh… It's nice to meet you?"

"Likewise, Natsumi-sama."

The assassin suppressed the automatic grimace, still not used to the automatic and respectful suffix she gained marrying Shikaku. She hadn't even gotten used to being called that by her own Summons. "Just Natsumi, please." Coming up blank on a polite way to phrase her question, she decided to just jump in the deep end for at least something to talk about. "Are you a kunoichi, Misaki-san?"

"Of course, Natsumi-san." The Hyuuga woman kept on smiling serenely, and Natsumi would have almost said creepily if the woman didn't seem to genuinely radiate peace from her pores. "I specialize in body guarding noblewomen."

Oh… _oh_. The female side of the hired shinobi guards she was specifically trained to evade or kill to make it to a target. How… nice. "That is… ironic."

Misaki blinked, changing expression for the first time Natsumi had seen to something similar to polite curiosity. "Why would you say that?"

"You do know you're visiting a bedridden assassin, right?"

Her lips twitched, and the assassin homed in on the slight show of personality like a bee to honey. "Ha! I knew there was some character in there." She glanced to the stony faced Hizashi sitting next to his intended wife to his twin brother who had a similar passive expression on his face. "I dearly hope you didn't just bring her around for my approval, so what's up?"

The twins exchanged a look over the other woman's head, Misaki herself simply sitting there with the same creepily polite smile. Hizashi was the one to answer. "You were not the only target of Kumo that night, Natsumi. Misaki-san herself was targeted but the attackers couldn't get close enough to the clan's compound to attempt anything."

Said woman nodded firmly, clearly having been told the Nara clan head's wife's concerns before even making the trip over to the assassin's house.

"Okay… I see someone _else_ talked to my husband before he left the village." Natsumi's lips thinned. "I know if I keep telling myself it I might end up believing that, but that's going to take time."

Hiashi frowned at her briefly. "You may not have that time, Natsumi. The AnBu squads that escorted the Iwa and Kumo ambassadors have returned to the village."

Blinking her dual colored eyes, the assassin stared at him for a moment then turned her head to the Hyuuga woman. "Would you mind going to bother Shia-chan about some tea, Misaki-san? I'd do it myself but-"

"No need to continue, I understand." Bowing politely, the Hyuuga woman rose from the couch and left the room.

"What happened?" Natsumi asked the moment the rice screen slid shut behind the woman, completely confident in the privacy seals she had inked throughout the Nara's clan head's house to keep anyone from eavesdropping in on them. She was counting the days until she no longer had to rely on the information her friends could share with her, firmly of the opinion that the day she could walk back into AnBu HQ and get her own Intel again couldn't come fast enough.

"Both squads were attacked almost immediately after crossing the border countries, they left the ambassadors there and retreated to Konohagakure. Hokage-sama does not believe we will see our ambassadors alive again and has ordered all outgoing squads, cells, and teams to treat any shinobi with Iwa's or Kumo's hitai-ate like threats unless proven without a doubt that they wish to defect."

The bedridden AnBu captain almost bit through her lower lip. As far as figuring out the current intents of Iwa and Kumo went and what Konoha's stance would be in return, that was a pretty clear message of no tolerance.

"Hokage-sama hasn't declared war yet?"

"Unless there is another attack on us, by either village, he does not wish to." Hiashi huffed, frowning even more to the point a crease appeared in the middle of his forehead. "There are many who have expressed a wish to simply go after both villages immediately for the affronts of being caught attacking two of Konoha's clans, even if my own has not made the attempt on Misaki-san public on Hokage-sama's request."

Sarutobi Hiruzen was probably already balancing a lit powder keg with the two attacks she had foiled already. Letting the civilians and shinobi ranks know that not only were two of the less powerful but still popular clans targeted first by Iwa then by both Rock and Cloud but one of the four noble founding shinobi clans had also been a target would probably push current public opinion into _wanting_ another war to show the other Hidden Villages that attacking Konoha's ninja clans was just a fast track to being smashed. No wonder the Hokage had asked the Hyuugas not to make knowledge of the preempted attack public, Natsumi figured he was trying to keep the village squarely in the right for this next conflict. No one would label Konoha as bloodthirsty if she was just trying to ensure the safety of her shinobi when home within her walls.

Jiraiya had probably been recalled to assist Intelligence in formulating rumors that would reach both Hidden Villages about the consequences of another attack on Konohagakure or her shinobi. Natsumi had been suspicious of her old sensei's non comment to her speculated motive for his return, this had just cleared up her confusion over it. He must have only heard about the rumors of an attack on the Nara clan on his way back, the assassin hadn't thought the rumors would have spread to Ame in time for the timing of the Toad Sage's return. It was still pretty cool of the older looking man to come and visit her anyways.

"Well… shit." The misplace soldier swore more under her breath just as Hizashi's fiancée returned with a tea tray. "Now I don't feel as bad."

"Finally."

Natsumi smiled politely at the younger of the Hyuuga twins. "I have no problems throwing pillows into my husband's face, Hizashi. You are not safe even all the way over there."

The leader of the Hyuuga branch house warily eyed her even as Misaki served them all some of the jasmine tea the assassin favored.

"Misaki-san? Would you like to join me and a few other clan affiliated kunoichi for tea sometime? I'm sure we can tell you some interesting things about your clan head and your intended husband."

The Hyuuga woman's bland smile deepened into something that if you looked closely enough, could have been called mischievous. "I would love to join you and a few others for tea sometime, Natsumi-san. Just let me know when."

Hiding the smirk behind the rim of her teacup, the assassin watched the Hyuuga twins lose a few shades of color and Hizashi looked at Hiashi in alarm.

\V/

Natsumi had healed enough to start heavily limping around her house by the time Minato returned to the village and had the usual two free days to recover and visit her before reporting back in as available. Not that she was supposed to be doing said limping, but she was tired of either reading AnBu files or trying to send poor Nara Shia to find something other than tactical manuals or ninja scrolls in the house and needed some kind of escape from her own bedroom. By the kami themselves, she would not be _carried_ in her own home. "I swear, the moment Shikaku gets back I'm sending him straight out to a bookstore."

"I could run out and find something for you, sempai."

"Minato, you would probably just bring back whatever fuuinjutsu scroll that managed to distract you on the way." The assassin bluntly informed the blond who was situated behind her as they sat back to back in the misplaced soldier's front yard. Natsumi had demanded some outside time and painfully evaded both Jiraiya and Minato until they gave up to get herself some. Now she had her eyes closed and face turned up to the sun as the future Yondaime was bent over his mission report and writing the last of it so he could turn it in the next day. "Not that I would mind that… eventually, but I want something completely _brain rotting_. Fantasy stories, maybe some completely false historical accounts, hell… I'd even read a trashy _romance_ novel right about now."

Shinobi were not very good at recording history for some reason, which might have something to do with the heavily secretive nature of a ninja's life. There was more on the history of Fire Country and the series of Daimyos that ruled there than the pitiful handful of books on the how and why Konohagakure was founded, and most of those records of the establishment of the Village Hidden in the Leaves were classified beyond hell and back again and held a place in the Sarutobi and Senju clan libraries.

"You're life isn't enough of a fantasy for you?" Her almost-brother asked archly.

Natsumi had explained to him that she couldn't throw shuriken because of how unreal it seemed to even try a long time ago, and he had kept that tidbit in the little mental box he occasionally worried about when he had the time and opportunity to wonder just when the woman who had taught him a lot about taijutsu and helped him through more than just a little of the academy's tasks and homework would snap. Minato knew Inoichi had a similar count of how many times the misplaced soldier had flinched or shied away from something when they had been academy students and genin, and he didn't even want to know if Jiraiya had something similar. She was too skilled to show that kind of hesitance now and it almost seemed like ill-wishing to keep reminding himself of the few times she had flatly refused to do something he never had a problem with when they had been younger. He knew the dual eyed woman they worried over was exasperated by all of their concern, but Minato couldn't help it. Even their old genin teammate couldn't completely call her sane because he hadn't gone back through her head to actually look for any mental breakage and unless the currently recovering AnBu captain consented and Hokage-sama approved, they never would.

Humming a little, Natsumi stretched out her arms and then sighed heavily. "At the moment? I can't even _walk_ very fast. Riveting life I'm leading, huh?"

Minato laughed at her bland tone. "Bored?"

"More than just a little."

The blond huffed in exasperation at her. "You're supposed to be _healing_. Convalescing, taking it easy, recovering from injuries, ring any bells? I seem to recall Tsunade-sama telling you she would _break_ your other leg if you pushed yourself too hard. Your bones are not quite set yet, sempai."

"I _am_ healing. I'm just healing in the sunlight for the moment." Natsumi drove one of her elbows backwards into her kouhai's ribs, sniffing at his grunt and consecutive swearword when he smeared the wet ink on his report. "I would have been healing in the sunlight faster if you and sensei had just let me gimp my way out here."

"Sensei doesn't want a visit from his scary teammate who can shatter mountains with a pinky because neko-chan has _issues_ with being carried." Jiraiya grumped from the porch, looking up over the top of the translation the dual eyed woman had compiled for him to eye her.

"My issues have issues, sensei. I'm pretty sure everyone here already knows that. And neko-chan has _claws_." The unapologetic assassin returned sharply. "I am no one's _pet_ to be carted around. It's another thing entirely if I couldn't do it on my own but I _can_ walk, damn it all."

"Would you refuse to be carried if you were injured on mission?"

"Hell no." Natsumi scoffed at Minato. "I've been carried on mission before. Matter of fact, when we needed speed back when I was just an AnBu agent before sensei snagged me out of there, Horse would carry me. I did that for half a year and countless missions in the end of the Second War. I can stand it, but I would really rather do it myself no matter how slow I am."

"… Ah."

Laughing, the assassin hit the ground trying to look at her flushing kouhai. "Did you _really_ think I have a pride problem? Your faith in me is astounding." Natsumi faked sniffed, holding her hands to her face as if to cover up her face and ending up just covering her smirk. "I think I may cry."

"Why are you two making my wife cry?" Shikaku asked dryly, not bothering to figure out what was going on because he knew Natsumi was safe with her brother figure and her old teacher.

"Shika! You're home! Do me a favor?" The lame AnBu captain twisted around even more, trying to both keep her healing leg straight and look at her husband at the same time. She only continued when the man warily nodded to her question. "Go to the bookstore and find me something other than technical manuals and jutsu scrolls to read, please?"

"Why me?"

"Because Shia-chan refuses to leave the house just to find me something else for me to read, Minato would just get lost in some scroll with obscure sealing techniques and forget to bring me back something," Natsumi paused and lifted her head up just enough to look at the bemused Jiraiya before dropping her head to look back at her confused husband, "and I really don't want to know what sensei's taste in literate runs too."

"Oi!"

The Nara's lips twitched, pulling upwards as he watched his wife bat her lashes at him from the ground. "Anything else, dear?"

Natsumi suddenly pouted, eyeing him and the smirk he was now wearing suspiciously. "You're going to put me back in our room, aren't you?"

"Yep. Any last words?"

Still jutting out her lower lip, the assassin turned her head just enough to peer at her kouhai's face over his left arm. "I blame you."

Minato blinked down at her, confused and distracted from fixing his mission report. "Wait, what?"

Shikaku huffed out a laugh before picking his pouting wife up off the ground and threw her over his shoulder. "I don't want to know."

\V/

"You are not handing our _four_ year old son a _sharp blade_ and teaching him to _throw it_ at people, Sakumo."

Natsumi paused in the doorway at the sharp tone in Eri's voice. Uh oh… this didn't sound good. Poking her head into the Hatake clan compound kitchen, the assassin spotted her blank faced old AnBu captain and the sheepish silver haired boy standing right next to him across from the very irritated woman standing in the middle of the room. Before she could say anything, Sakumo flicked his fingers at her in his personal version of the standard hand signs, telling her in vague signals to wait in the hallway for the target.

Hand signs in Konoha only had a general set, shinobi were expected to develop their own personal signs over the course of their careers. A ninja's personal signals started in the standard set taught to genin and developed outward, picking up slight variations due to the work they do or the situations they've seen. You could tell a lot about a shinobi or kunoichi by the influences on their personal codes, how much work they did in AnBu or T&I, which type of missions they tended to be sent out on, the friends or coworkers they preferred to socialize with. Sakumo had a set that started out in T&I and remained strong in the terms used by a lot of espionage specialists, he had the heavy influence on tracking vocabulary and the occasional AnBu influenced term or sign. Which told Natsumi that her old taicho probably had started in either Intelligence or Interrogation and worked a lot with Jiraiya before he started being sent out on tracking missions, evolving into his infiltration work in AnBu. The older looking man's hand signs would develop even more over the next few years, probably picking up a stronger vocabulary in combat terms if he continued to pick up jounin level combat likely missions.

That would be, of course, if Eri didn't find a way to kill him first.

They, being the shinobi that saw Kakashi a lot, were rapidly running through everything they could to teach the brilliant, genius level four year old boy that the civilian woman who was his mother wouldn't protest his learning. He had the basics of his father's tracking skills and the Hatake clan's basic katas, Natsumi's stretches and taijutsu tricks, a grounding in Shikaku's tactical strategies, Kushina's calligraphy tips and chakra control hints, Minato's beginner sealing skills, Mikoto's genjutsu basics, Hiashi's and Hizashi's poker faces, Inoichi's soft interrogation skills and Fugaku's version of them. There wasn't much more of any ninja basics they could give him and the sliver haired boy had started working his way up to the moderate skills of each subject even without them teaching him most of it, leaving very little room to keep the kid happily occupied and not bored out of his skull.

The misplaced solider was relatively sure the son of her old AnBu captain would still be going to the academy early even with his mother's concern delaying his enrollment a year or so, because there just wasn't enough they could teach him without having the child swear to Konoha's shinobi code to protect and serve the village with his skills. She had plans to let the kid in on the old method of picking specialties the academy graduates of the Second Great Shinobi War knew, it would at least keep him somewhat occupied for hopefully a year or two if not interested in the lesson plans.

Kakashi slipped out into the hallway with her, gray eyes flicking back to the kitchen before the boy reached his sister figure. Natsumi picked him up, setting him on her left hip before silently limping out of the house to where Shikaku was waiting for her and the Hatakes for the now infrequently held informal meetings between a fair few clan heads, their closes advisors, and a few other noteworthy shinobi of Konoha. The man blinked at the sight she and Kakashi made before reaching out and taking the heavy child from his wife, who shouldn't have been lifting any weight with her still weak right leg. "They're going to be a bit?"

"Yeah. You okay there, Kashi-chan?"

Even if he had already started protesting her use of her babyish nickname for him, the silver haired child just silently nodded under her hand ruffling his hair.

Natsumi sighed, tugging a few unruly hanks of the kid's hair. "It'll be fine. This isn't the first time something from your tou-sama's life clashed with something of your kaa-chan's expectations."

Her husband winced at the news. "Ouch."

"Yeah." The assassin carefully lowered herself to the ground, biting her thumb and flicking her fingers in the series needed to summon one of her felines before slamming her hand on the ground. "Kuchiyose no Jutsu!"

Kenta glanced around and sneezed from the smoke produced by burning chakra once he was sure there wasn't an immediate or stealthy need for him. "Something wrong, lady?"

"I need you to hunt down Minato and tell him we'll be a little later than planned." Scratching under the big cat's chin, Natsumi smiled at her favorite summons. "Please?"

The Leopard huffed, nipping at her fingertips before turning on the spot and stalking off.

"I'm pretty sure that's a breach of your contract, dear." Shikaku drawled out, smirking. "I don't think Tamika-sama will appreciate you sending her minions off on your personal errands."

The dual eyed woman sniffed haughtily at him, grabbing his pant's leg to just as carefully haul herself upright again. "This is tracker training in nonviolent conditions, Kenta even agrees with me."

Kakashi finally cracked a small smile, tugging at the Nara's arms to be put down so he could inspect the charka scorched ground where Natsumi summoned the young feline to. "Tou-sama said dogs are better."

"Taicho is entitled to his opinion," the assassin stuck her nose in the air, "but it is still an _opinion_, not _fact_."

"I don't think you're going to gain ground here, Natsu." Tugging the shorter woman's braid, Shikaku grinned at her annoyed expression. "Konoha is mainly canine territory."

His wife pouted at him with narrow eyes. "My cats are awesome. It's not my fault if no one else can see it."

Kakashi snickered, brushing off his dirty hands on his pants legs and looking up at the assassin with a toothy grin. "I think dogs are better."

Natsumi wrinkled her nose at him. "And now I'm tempted to indoctrinate you into the feline way of thinking."

"You are not brainwashing my son, neko-chan." Sakumo poked her on the forehead before shutting his front door behind him. "Eri will just be a few moments more."

"That was quick, taicho. How long have you been sentenced to the dog house this time?" The assassin put the long suffering Shikaku between herself and the annoyed older looking man, grinning the whole time. "Already injured, can't abuse."

"I'll lock her in a room with you when she's cleared for active duty if you keep her on the injured lists and at home." The Nara clan head offered idly, a sly smirk stealing over his face when his wife huffed at him and punched his arm.

"So?"

"Eri's not happy with me, but she now knows we're running out of things to teach him." Rubbing the back of his neck with one hand the head of the Hatake clan set his other on his son's head. "We'll be _discussing_ teaching him to handle weaponry later tonight."

"Good luck?" Natsumi offered uncertainly, biting her lower lip.

Neither Eri nor Sakumo had survived in the story she could only hazily recall, so she didn't know if they could work out the differences between civilian life and Konoha's shadow military habits between themselves. She did recall from her last life that mixed marriages of civilian and military didn't tend to work out well very often, keeping secrets from your spouse and living with a killer didn't tend to make for good relationships.

But there were always the exceptions to the rules, and she desperately hoped her second favorite couple would be one of them… for Kakashi's sake if not their own.

(ooo000ooo)

Eri was by no means settled when she joined her family and the Nara couple for the trip to the Sarutobi clan compound. Natsumi chose to walk with the older looking woman, leaving her husband to walk with the civilian woman's shinobi husband and her son. "Are you alright?"

"Not going to try and convince me this is for the best too?" Eri gritted out lowly, narrowed eyes on the path they were taking.

"You're his mother, it's not my right to say anything about how you and taicho raise your son." Linking their arms partly to comfort the woman and partly for the support for her right leg, the assassin worriedly glanced at the woman's taut and drawn face. "I would just like to know how you are feeling right now."

"Pressured."

"Fair enough."

Eri didn't last five minutes in silence before spilling what was worrying her to the kunoichi. "Why do you want to teach him to do this now? I thought I would be losing him when he goes to the academy in four years, not now when _he's_ four."

"I never looked back once Minato and I left the academy… but we were orphans, Eri-san. No parents. Kakashi-kun has both of you, and even genin don't leave their home unless they stay at that rank for years. Sometimes not even at chuunin do ninja leave home."

"I'm surprised you're not trying to do your psychological double talk to get me to agree to this."

Natsumi nodded slowly, unsurprised at the bitter comment. "I have the feeling you wouldn't appreciate it."

The civilian woman laughed, but it wasn't a happy laugh. "No, I wouldn't. Thank you for not doing it."

"You're welcome."

Eri nibbled on her lower lip, and the assassin finally figured out who she had copied that habit from. "How did you start down this road, if you didn't have someone at home to send you to the academy?"

"All orphans are sent to the academy first. If you fail out, for either little to no chakra or too few usable skills, you get sent to be apprenticed for some trade skill or sent to the civilian schools."

"You don't have a choice in it?"

The misplaced soldier frowned thoughtfully. "I suppose I could've purposely failed out of the academy, but I don't see a reason why I'd want to."

"Of course you don't." The civilian woman patted the assassin on the arm. "I worry that Kakashi is just going along with all of it because of you all expecting him to be a ninja."

"Aa… okay."

Eri shot her a suspicious look. "You're going to tell Sakumo about our conversation, aren't you?"

Natsumi smiled slyly. "He won't hear a word from me, Eri-san."

Her old AnBu captain didn't need to hear about his wife's worries from the assassin, he had already heard every word his wife spoke even if he had been talking with Shikaku a ways behind the two of them. Marks of the Dog Summoning Contract included sharp canines, a sensitive sense of smell, and acute hearing.

\V/

Two and a half months after being attacked in her own home, Natsumi was let back on active duty with the understanding that she had two weeks in which to take a mission just to prove that the attack in her home hadn't shaken her confidence in her ninja skills to be let back on AnBu duty.

Minato decided he wanted to run a mission with her, obstinately to keep an eye on her recovery and to make sure she didn't reinjure her leg being reckless.

Natsumi wanted to know in what reality she had ever been reckless on mission.

Her kouhai wouldn't meet her eyes as they consulted the jounin assignment hall's wall of missions for something inside Fire Country that would fit the assassin's needed criteria to prove she was fit for duty. The dual eyed woman bit back her ire and pointed at a border inspection. "What about that one?"

"Should work." Her annoying brother figure mused aloud. "Want to pick up a few others for backup?"

"Why? It's an _inspection_." Snatching the mission tag off the wall, the assassin inspected the file number stamped on the back of it to match it with the corresponding Intel in the file cabinets. "Worse thing that will happen is we'll meet some nuke-nin out across the border trying to knock over one of the more remote villages."

Minato took the tag from her to look at the general mission parameters while she got the more specific details and the relevant reports. "It's a long mission, sempai. Just so we're not alternating being asleep or on watch every other day is a good reason to take some chuunin with us."

Running the whole length of Fire Country would take at least three weeks at a good pace set for chuunin, added in the time to do the inspections of all the outposts along the way they were already looking at nearly a month long mission if they added more personnel. As long as they didn't run into enemy activity along the way, that is. Natsumi really didn't want to be out of the village that long for something that wasn't an AnBu mission.

"Adding chuunins would just make the mission longer."

"You are still on the injured lists for at least another week. Some of that time would just be getting you back to fighting form." The blond shot back, tapping the wooden tag on the table the assassin had spread out the intelligence reports on. "We can pick up a taijutsu specialist to help you out, as well as a medic-nin just in case."

She would've protested the idea of an iryou-nin if the mission hadn't needed them to get close to the Border Countries nearest Earth and Lightning. The relations between Iwa and Kumo in regards to Konoha was still as frosty as an Iron Country winter storm and now every mission getting close to either country had the standard warning of high level combat possible. Meaning that possible medic wouldn't just be there for her, he or she would be there for the whole team. "So a tai specialist, a medic, anything else you want to bring along?"

"Backup for the taijutsu user?"

"We're going to have one hell of a footprint out there."

"It's not a stealth mission, sempai. There isn't a reason to conceal our presence much more than the usual reasons."

Natsumi sighed, pouting at the faintly grinning blond across from her. "I miss AnBu."

"One more mission, Natsu." Minato gathered up the intelligence reports to be refiled since they were taking the mission. "Go and make the team request."

With a huff the assassin got up and walked over to the mission desk with the wooden tag.

(ooo000ooo)

Mebuki pounced on her boyfriend with her mission scroll in hand. "Jounin! We're running a mission with two jounin, Kizashi!"

Patting the woman on the arm, her easygoing significant other smirked as they walked out of the Chuunin Corps assignment hall. "You don't say."

"We impress them and they might put a recommendation in our files to get out of the Corps!" The blonde taijutsu specialist whooped. "Tokubetsu jounin, or even _full_ jounin. Think about it."

Kizashi snagged his copy of the mission scroll out of his girlfriend's weapon pouch. "Which two jounin? We're not babysitting some Intel paper pushers, are we?"

"Nope, not Intelligence." The purring voice had both chuunin twisting around to see the short, dark haired, dual eyed woman and the blond haired, blue eyed man standing over her right shoulder. "Kenjutsu and fuuinjutsu specialists."

The red head chuunin winced, rubbing at the stubble under his chin. "Ouch. Sorry."

"Shush." Stomping on his toe, the green eyed taijutsu user smiled blandly at the two higher ranking shinobi waiting on them. "Kokkali Mebuki, ma'am. Taijutsu specialist."

The woman smirked at their antics. "Nara Natsumi, kenjutsu specialist. The lout behind me is Namikaze Minato."

"Err… Haruno Kizashi, ma'am. Trap specialist."

The assassin blinked. Haruno Sakura's father was a shinobi? Looking between the red haired man and the blonde woman next to him, the misplaced soldier noted the woman had some clear green eyes and had the same face as the pink haired medical ninja. Huh… maybe both parents were shinobi? "Mission is probably going to take us at least a solid month and some weeks, so plan accordingly."

"Natsumi just got off the injured lists, so we'll be starting off slow." Minato slung an arm over the shorter woman's shoulders. "And we'll have an iryou-nin with us. Meet at the main gates with mission packs tomorrow at dawn's break."

Mebuki and Kizashi nodded sharply, passing the jounin pair to assemble what they would need for an extended mission.

Natsumi sighed, grabbing Minato's left hand and bending the pointer finger back until the arm fell off her shoulder. "Who's the medical specialist?"

"Tsunade-sama's picking someone."

Turning to inspect her kouhai's expression, the misplaced soldier peered at him suspiciously. "You tipped her off we were getting one of her iryou-nins, didn't you?"

"Nope. Shikaku did."

Natsumi huffed. "You all need to stop, I'm starting to feel like a glass doll."

(ooo000ooo)

Nara Shia was their medical nin. Natsumi cracked up when she spotted the young kunoichi that had watched over her recovery waiting for them to depart for the mission.

Minato sighed at the Nara almost bent double. "Any time now, Natsu."

Still snickering, the assassin backhanded him in the gut. "Wow. The things you learn even before you leave on missions."

"Shikaku-sama was clear on his instructions that you not be informed of my specialization when I was assigned to you for your recovery, Natsumi-sama." The young kunoichi simply shrugged blandly at her clan head's lady wife and gave her a lazy grin. "I hope you are not too annoyed with me."

"I'm impressed you managed to keep that from me for almost three months." Natsumi rubbed her eyes, still grinning widely. She had never suspected it, she had thought the younger woman had been a bodyguard or something. The Nara clan did have a long history in medical research and it really was something she should've guessed at without being told otherwise. "You ready, Shia-chan?"

"Yes ma'am." The iryou-nin patted the apron most medics used to hold the tools of their trade for long missions.

"Wait, does that mean you're the new lady of the Nara clan?" Mebuki asked, looking from the long suffering blond fuuinjutsu user to the kenjutsu using kunoichi. "The one that was almost killed by Iwa and Kumo a few months back?"

The assassin blinked at her, surprised. "You didn't make that connection when we met the first time? Usually it's the eyes that people recognize and put to the rumors."

She flicked her green eyes up at her boyfriend's red hair, which was styled out in the pattern of a five petal sakura blossom. "I don't tend to notice those things, honestly."

"Point." Natsumi agreed with a nod and a lopsided smirk and a sideways look to the same feature. "Shall we get started then? Minato's leading, you two flank Shia and I'll bring up the rear."

\V/

Missions that Konoha decided needed to be done were kind of like the guard duty from her last life. Mostly boring and routine, since these kinds of missions were more about ensuring the Leaf's and Fire Country's security than killing off threats to the village and sneaking in and out of other countries.

Natsumi learned that Mebuki _was_ really good at taijutsu three weeks into the mission, though. She wasn't nearly as fast as Minato or as devious as the AnBu captain herself, but it was almost as fun as facing off with one half of the Hyuuga twins back when they had all been chuunin.

The short haired blonde kunoichi was game for the challenge of keeping up with the recovering assassin's taijutsu, but by the time they passed the halfway mark for their mission had to admit to her boyfriend if not the two Naras on the team and the blond mission leader that there was still a wide gap between the two of them. She did want to know where the misplaced soldier had picked up the style from.

Natsumi tugged the end of her braided hair as she thought while the team was on a break, since they were making good time between outposts. Time to lie. "Honestly? I've forgotten a lot about it. I was told my mother taught it to me, but I know the style is unfinished and rough in places. I've never had the time to work on it and I wouldn't know even where to begin to polish it into an actual style of taijutsu."

"I could tell, even from what little you needed to kick my ass around." Mebuki mused, staring at the assassin thoughtfully. "Would you mind teaching me? I think I can polish it up for you."

"Um… if you want?" The older of the two Naras frowned slightly. She had never thought to see what a taijutsu specialist had thought of her old combatives based taijutsu. It worked for her, and that was really all she had cared about. "Don't know when I'm going to have the time, I've got some work that had to be put on hold for my recovery that I need to get to once we're back in Konoha."

"Maybe you should think of dropping something?" Minato asked her dryly.

Natsumi pulled a face at him. She knew her kouhai wasn't very happy that she went back to AnBu even after they had made jounin, annoyingly enough their sensei agreed with the blond and both of them reminded her of it every moment they could. "Hush you. I know what I'm doing."

He flicked his eyes down to her right leg pointedly.

She stuck her nose in the air. "_That's_ not from _that_, thank you very much. And if taicho could do it as a clan head, I can do it as the wife of a clan head."

"He was the only one in his clan, and he stopped once he wasn't anymore."

"You _think_ he did. I _know_ better."

Kizashi blinked, confused, looking between the two jounin. "Do what?"

Natsumi smiled mischievously. "This and that." She would have added more just to tease the red head since he was really cool with anything poking at him… but something brushed the very edge of her senses. The misplaced woman couldn't place what it was, she was too poor a sensor for that. "Minato? You're better than I am."

Her kouhai pressed two fingers to the ground, frowning. "I got two closing in fast. Jounin level."

"Hide yourselves, now." The assassin snapped at the three lower ranking shinobi after biting down on her thumb and twisting her fingers in a now familiar jutsu. "Kuchiyose no Jutsu!"

Natsumi jerked her head at Kenta, her favorite summons, and the teenaged Leopard slunk off to guard the others just in case.

The assassin stayed low in a crouch and Minato stood straight up, staring off in the direction he had picked up the chakra signals in. Her kouhai palmed his three-pronged kunai as her hand drifted to the hilt of her katana.

"Wouldn't do that, cats. Or we'll stomp you like rats."

Minato looked up into the trees, frowning faintly at the heavily muscled, dark skinned but light haired man wearing goggles and a vast number of swords on his back standing on a low branch. "Well… that's a first. I've never been rhymed at before."

"I have. Hime thought it would be funny to speak in nothing but rhymes for a whole day once." Natsumi interjected idly, not moving a muscle. Her kouhai had said there were two after all. "Where's your little friend, big guy?"

"Wouldn't you like to know. I have a feeling it would be better to show." Jumping down to the ground, and landing with a solid thud, the man straightened up to tower over even the assassin's six foot and change tall younger brother in all but blood.

Natsumi sprang upright and used the flat of her sword to block the kunai on collision course with her kouhai's head. "Hello to you too."

The man that had tried to sneak up on them was built similarly to the first one, but there was enough different between the two that the assassin was unsure if they were family or not.

"I'm pretty sure this is Fire Country… unless I'm wrong, sempai?" When Natsumi didn't answer him the blond fuuinjutsu user turned his attention back to the first man. "And you two are from Lightning from the looks of the Kumo symbols carved into your hitai-ate. So, what the hell are you doing in our home territory?"

"Wouldn't you like to know." The second man sneered acidly.

"Yo bro! Ditch the losers and let's go!"

The crackle of lightning had the hair on the assassin's arms standing straight up and she darted out of the way and to the second shinobi to show up. Trusting her kouhai to get out of the way at the very least as she distracted the other man with her katana blade to his face. He used the padded Kumo standard arm braces to turn the edge of her blade away from him on her way past him, and although she managed to hack a good gouge into his bracer she didn't hit him at all. "Damn, you're fast. Not going to save you, little girl."

Natsumi smirked at him, taking one hand of the hilt of her sword to palm the hiraishin kunai her kouhai had badgered her into carrying for the mission. "I don't have to be fast, sweetheart. That's his job." Throwing the kunai and purposely missing the man, she only had enough time to wink before the seal pulled her in another direction.

Basically, she and Minato switched opponents without letting them in on the switch.

The larger of the two Kumo nins didn't have enough time to bring up either padded forearms to block the misplaced soldier's swing. She scored a good hit on the man's bicep, not quite striking bone but deep enough he had to staunch the bleeding with his other hand and limiting the effectiveness of anything else he could pull off now.

Or at least, it should have.

Natsumi's dual colored eyes narrowed on the faint steam rising off the wound she had scored. Something about that was tickling the back of her mind and made her wary of accepting anything she would normally assume about her current opponent. Usually that little tickle meant she was missing something. "The hell?"

Minato ended back to back with her after exchanging a few blows with the slighter of the two Kumo shinobi. "Something wrong, sempai?"

"I think he might be healing already."

The larger of the two grinned at her. "Smart lady. Look, it's already fading." He lifted the bloodstained hand to show a slowly closing cut, not nearly as bad as it had been when Natsumi had just cut him open.

"So, if I slice you up enough times will that slow down?" The assassin tilted her sword so both of them could see the man's blood run down the edge of her blade. "I'm game to find out if you are."

"B, I think we overstayed our welcome." Shouted the smaller of the two, rubbing the back of one hand across his mouth to mop up the blood Minato drew by smashing his fist into the Kumo nin's face. "Let's kill them and get out of here."

"You'll find that a bit harder than you think." Minato told them evenly, pulling a few more of the three-pronged kunai out of the kunai pouch strapped to his thigh. "I'm sure neither of us are injured yet."

B finally grabbed the hilts of two of the swords stacked up on his back, scowling at the two of them. Natsumi didn't really want to cross swords with him, lightning chakra _could_ be channeled through the steel in a katana's blade as she learned from sparring with her own taicho. So she defaulted to the same trick that made the silver haired retired AnBu captain to glare at her when she did it, the water bullets she no longer needed hand signs to spit.

The one labeled B cursed as the bullets he cut apart sprayed him with water, recognizing what she had been aiming for only when he was sopping wet. "That's dirty pool, girl."

Natsumi batted her lashes at him. "So is attacking a patrol thinking you'd get away easy and free, boys."

The wet Kumo shinobi smirked. "You're kinda cute, little kitty cat. But sheath those claws before we go get the dogs."

"Did he just hit on me?" The assassin asked, surprised and slightly disgusted. "What the hell, man? I'm married!"

Minato's right eye twitched. "Natsumi, settle down. I'm sure he didn't mean it how it sounded."

"Natsumi?" The still unnamed second Kumo shinobi asked, looking at the shorter woman's eyes when she turned her head to glare at him. "You wouldn't happen to be _Nara_ Natsumi, would you? There's a pretty penny on your head set by Iwa."

"You'd have to take my head first to collect that," the now vastly annoyed assassin quipped, "and I'm not betting anything that you two can take us on and win."

Minato didn't add a word, and the AnBu captain knew he was more annoyed with himself for actually using her name rather than at the two Kumo shinobi now looking to take her head. He started the next exchange now that they were finished testing each other to see if it would be an easy fight or not, tossing the hiraishin kunai in his hand at B's head and flashing to catch it once the Kumo shinobi simply tilted his head to let it pass him by. Natsumi didn't wait to see what else her kouhai was going to pull on the ninja, she spun to keep the shorter of the two from sucker punching her in the gut and flashed her sword at the man's face again.

She missed him but sheared off some of his hair off and returned the sucker punch with a kick that connected with the man's ribs. In return he managed to dig a Kumo standard kunai into the meat of her right thigh before the force of her chakra assisted Brazilian jujitsu kick knocked him into a nearby trunk.

"Fuck." Natsumi hissed, flexing her right leg to make sure the kunai wasn't lodged in her femur again. "Now I'm getting pissed. That just healed up." He sneered at her as he pushed himself up, but he was distracted by something behind her. The assassin shifted her katana so the mirror polished blade could reflect what was going on for her while also keeping an eye on the man in front of her, and smirked at the sight of B being held down at Minato's kunai point. "Well, isn't that a pretty sight."

"B, I think it's time we go."

"Sorry Blondie. We're going." B dove forward to get the point of the three-pronged kunai off the back of his neck, spinning around once he had the purchase on the ground to do so and barreling past the dual eyed woman who barely scratch him with the tip of her sword. He snatched up the slightly shorter man and took off from the clearing without a backwards look.

Natsumi let herself hit the ground, scowling at the metal sticking out of her thigh. "Well… at least they didn't break my bones this time."

Placing his hand to the ground again to track the two out of Fire Country, Minato did a bit of frowning himself. "Damn. I wanted to know what they were doing here."

"I might be able to answer that." Flicking her hand, the Yin release based genjutsu she had placed on the ground faded away. Leaving behind the white, over the shoulder fastened Kumo jounin vest. "If they are any type of organized, that is."

"They might come back for that."

"In my defense, I hadn't been stuck with a kunai when I cut it off the shorter one."

Blue eyes flickered over to her, taking in how badly she was injured. "Call Kenta and the others back. I'll take a look through and we'll leave it here."

Natsumi was perfectly content to leaving the snooping to her kouhai, as a fuuinjutsu user he was used to looking twice for any traps in the things he handled. So she just flared her chakra to call her Leopard back to her, and hopefully bring Shia with him to take a look at her thigh. In the meantime, the assassin pulled a few copies of the various Bingo Books she had acquired in AnBu. She had one possible name and two descriptions as well as village of origin, it should be enough to narrow down who they were really and why it was something about B pinged her radar.

Minato cursed quietly, not finding anything of worth in the Kumo jounin vest. "Nothing here, sempai."

"Found out who they were, though." Natsumi waved her beaten up copy of Kirigakure's Bingo Book at her kouhai. "The Raikage's son, A, was the shorter of the two. B, or rather Killer B, is the jinchuuriki of the eight-tails. They're tag-team taijutsu partners. Don't think we're going to get away with the switch again now that they've seen it once."

Killer B was also one of Namikaze-Uzumaki Naruto's teachers in the ways of being a jinchuuriki, in the far possible future and just before the Fourth Great Shinobi War. The assassin wanted to kick herself for not connecting the dots right before the fight had progressed to the second exchange of attacks aimed to kill one another, a demon container was not something she ever really wanted to fight seriously.

The blond frowned at the book in her hand. "Then it's time for us to leave. How close are Kenta and the others?"

Since her summons had a trace of her own chakra in them, Natsumi could pinpoint them even without having Minato's range. She pointed to the south. "That way. Can you piggyback me?"

Nodding once, the fuuinjutsu user took three strides over to the seated assassin and swung her to perch on his back. "Hold on, sempai."

"Wait. Do you mean you-" She didn't even have the time to finish asking her question, Minato used hiraishin to get them to the medic who he had planted one of his seals onto near the beginning of the mission. "-you suck, kouhai."

The three humans in the clearing whirled around at the sound of the AnBu captain's voice, Shia immediately homing in on the kunai still sticking out of her lady's thigh. "What happened?"

The blond who was technically the mission leader jerked his head at the taijutsu user and the trap specialist. "Watch our backs, but keep close. We're moving as soon as Natsumi's good to run."

"They missed the bone, thankfully. That would have set you back a few weeks in recovery, Natsumi-sama."

The misplaced soldier huffed irritably, scowling at the kunai the iryou-nin pulled from her thigh. "Heal it so we can at least get to the next outpost. I'll let you sit on me there if it means I can go back to what I was doing once we're home."

"I want that in writing."

Natsumi stuck her tongue out at Minato, accepting the hand up Shia offered. "Let's go. Kenta!"

The Leopard leapt down out of the trees, brushing up against the assassin's right. "Natsumi-sama?"

"I'm going to need you to take a message to Hokage-sama later tonight. Do you want to hang around or be resummoned later?"

The first summons she had ever taught to hunt eyed the fresh bloodstain on the bandage Shia had wrapped around her leg. "I will remain, my lady."

"Mebuki, Kizashi, we're leaving." Minato called out to the remainder of their team once he was sure the dual eyed woman's leg could support her weight.

\V/

Shikaku woke when a very familiar sound of the shower turning on reached him. Getting up, he padded his way into the bathroom and slid into the shower stall behind his newly returned wife.

"You know, one of these days I'm going to _accidently_ stab you for trying to sneak up on me." Natsumi turned her head just enough to give him a less than impressed look when he reached over her shoulder to adjust the spray higher.

"No you won't. You always know when I'm here so it wouldn't be an accident." Looping an arm around her waist and pulling her backwards, the clan head of the Naras looked down her body for any new scars and found the short and puckered one in the outside of her thigh. "Ouch." He traced it with his other hand, making sure the dual eyed woman wouldn't confuse it for another.

"A Kumo shinobi stabbed me with a kunai. The next Raikage even, I think." Frowning, the assassin repositioned the shower head again back to where she had it before. "Don't do that, I'm cold."

"Well, it _is_ winter. Why didn't you just come to bed?"

"If you hadn't noticed, it's raining outside." She hadn't thought she would miss actual snowstorms, but the powdered ice would be preferable to the sleet Konoha winters were known for. At least then only her feet would freeze, and she had no problems shoving her cold feet on her husband as long as they weren't wet. "And I was trying not to wake you up."

"Wet wife. Can't expect me to pass that up."

Natsumi huffed a dry laugh. "Nice to know I'm appreciated."

Shikaku hummed as he turned her around and wrapped his arms around her waist, frowning when she dug her still freezing fingers into his back to warm them up faster. "How was the mission? Besides very cold."

"Ran into Kumo about two weeks ago and couldn't figure out what they were doing in Fire Country. Iwa's pressing the borders hard, they actually managed to wipe out one of the outposts without alerting the nearby posts overnight when we were out there." The assassin sniffed, trying to warm up her nose with the steam starting to fill the room. "That's why we're a week late coming back… well, that and little Shia-chan decided I needed to fully heal from the stab wound before we left for the next guard station."

"We had another run in with Iwa while you were gone, too. Hokage-sama decided to take the issue to their door."

"What did they do?"

"T&I think they were just bounty hunters after you, but they claimed Iwa as their village so…"

Konoha was pulling the bullshit excuse? Huh. Well, she was going to keep in mind that Rock had killed a few Konoha ninja out on the border and hopefully avoid a panic attack. So... serves them right for killing her comrades. "Ballsy bounty hunters."

"Come on." Shikaku reached over her to turn off the water once he was sure she wasn't going to panic over the news like she almost had in the hospital a few months back. "I've got a better plan to warm you up than letting you boil your skin off."

"Kinky." Natsumi flared her chakra. Since her chakra was suiton based she could cheat and use it to keep herself dry if she didn't mind the drain on her reserves.

The Nara raised an eyebrow at his dry arm. "I'm not sure you're supposed to be able to do that."

"What, dry you off?" The assassin circled an arm around him and flexed her chakra again. The water peeled off his skin just as it did when she did it to dry off quickly. "Works just fine."

"Huh."

"Don't tell me I managed to distract you with a chakra trick. That's just sad, Shika."

He gave her a lopsided smirk. "Fine. Bed time."

Her eyes widened, but she didn't have time to back up or evade her husband as he picked her up and threw her over his shoulder. "It's like, five feet to the bed!"

"And I said I'd warm you up."


End file.
